


Thrillers and Fairytales

by ScarletEyes



Series: Sanders Sides Bookstore AU [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series), Thomas Sanders
Genre: Airplane Crashes, Anxiety Attacks, Bookstore AU, College AU, Eventual Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Logan just loves Patton, Logicality is a bookstore, M/M, Minor Character Death, Patton ships everything, Prinxiety - Freeform, Roman is in love, Virgil has too many names, Virgil is the king of anxious sarcasm, logicality - Freeform, some original characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-06-08 06:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 49
Words: 46,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15237750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletEyes/pseuds/ScarletEyes
Summary: Patton and Logan own a bookshop in a small town in Florida. Sales aren’t that great at the moment, but they’ll manage, like they always do. Their calm lives together will forever change however, when a couple of students from the nearby college decide to get their books from the bookstore rather than the library.Will they find a way to stay out of debt? And will Patton’s favorite ship set sail?Basically this fic will be: Cute couple Logicality and slow burn Prinxiety, set in a bookstore/college AU





	1. Prequel

It was a slow day at the bookstore. Patton was sitting behind the counter, looking at a girl scanning the shelfs under the sign “new in”. Patton was certain the girl already owned a copy of every book they sold at the store, but still she came back every day to see if they had something new. Patton didn’t know her name, but had mentally given her the nickname Belle, after the lead in Beauty and the Beast ofcourse. Patton loved giving nicknames to regular costumers, he’d sometimes even make shipnames for regulars who he thought would make a cute couple. After all that’s also how he came up with the name of the bookstore that he shared with is husband Logan. 

Even before Patton and Logan started dating, their group of friends would call Logan, Logic and Patton, morality. Nobody really remembers how those nicknames came to be, but they stuck around until long after they finished college. When Patton and Logan finally got together, Patton insisted on them having a shipname. 

Logan was confused at first, because why would they need a name for a water vessel if they didn’t have and couldn’t afford said water vessel? 

But after some explaining from Patton he was okay with Patton making up a silly name for the two of them. Only because he loved Patton of course... not because he secretly thought it was a cute idea as well... and definitely not because it reminded him of the word association games he used to play with Patton in their shared dorm room, where he slowly fell in love with him. 

Patton had tried every possible combination of their names. The ship names “Lotton” “Logon” “Pattan” and “Pagan” were quickly send to their sea graves. Just when Patton was about to give up Thomas ran up to where Logan and Patton were standing and greeted them with their nicknames. Suddenly Patton was jumping with joy “Logicality!” he almost screamed. Leaving Thomas very confused while Logan just sighed. Soon the couple was known under the ship name Logicality and a few years later they opened up a bookstore under the same name.

Patton often worked in the front of the store, behind the register or reading to children during the children’s books readings they organized every school holiday. Logan worked in the back most of the time. He did the administration and searched for new books to buy for the store. Patton loved to help with that but he often got a little to enthusiastic and wanted to buy every possible book, something their budget didn’t allow. Logan also sometimes managed the register when Patton was reading to the children or to busy with other things. 

“Belle” left the store without buying a new book and the store was empty again. Patton was tempted to go in the back and talk to Logan for a bit, and maybe make out for a bit too, but the store’s front door is pushed open and another costumer walks in.

Meanwhile in the back of the store the usually calm Logan was starting to freak out. The store’s sales weren’t very high at the moment and they hadn’t been for a while. Sure it was winter and sales were always lower in winter when it was colder and less people were out shopping in the streets. But they lived in Florida! Sunny Florida! It wasn’t like people couldn’t get to the store because of snow, because... well there was no snow! 

Logan had to take a moment to collect himself. This bookstore had been Patton’s dream and he was going to try everything to make it work. He hated it that people were less and less interested in reading real books and would often only read stories online. Couldn’t those people see the beauty of holding a real book and turning the pages? He had to find a way to make the people of this small town interested in reading, or he had to close and sell the store now, before they would end up in debt. However that was not an option. Patton loved this store and working in it, and to be honest so did Logan himself. There had to be a way to make this work... there had to be!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone,  
> This is the first fanfic I’ve ever decided to actually write (instead of just thinking of scenarios).  
> Would love to hear your reactions in the comments :)
> 
> (I’m also searching for a real name for Belle, so if anyone has any suggestions?)


	2. Sold Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stupid theatre literature books.

It was January and the new college courses were set to start next week. This wouldn’t be a problem for Roman if he would have bought the book he needed for this course, when his college had recommended him to. Now he was staring at the website he had to order that stupid book from on his computer screen. The damn book was sold out! And it wouldn’t be back in stock until half way through the semester! Roman had messed up. He had gotten so caught up in “Into the Woods”, the musical his local theatre group had performed last weekend. In which he had played the Baker and did a pretty good job if you asked him. But now he was to late ordering his theatre literature book and the only other way to get the book was to make a 3 hour drive from his parents’ home to the campus library. Where there was only one copy available.

While Roman was packing up his stuff to go to the campus a little bit sooner than he would have liked, another student realized he was missing the same book. Virgil lived in a small town 15 minutes away from campus, it would have been easy for him to go to the library to see if the book was there, but he really didn’t want to go back to college sooner than he had to. Instead he decided to go to the little bookstore a few blocks from his small apartment, because he knew they sometimes had academic books there and well... if he really didn’t want to go to the library this was his only option.

Virgil soon arrived at the bookstore. The outside of the store was very classy. The facade of the building was made out of white brick and the door and window frames were made out of a classic wood design that was painted black. In the store window there were some popular books that meant to get costumers to come into the store. The books were situated on some wooden plateaus and a few light blue pillows Virgil saw a complete set of Harry Potter books and some children’s books. A Winnie the Pooh book caught Virgil’s attention. He used to have that book himself when he still lived with his parents. A sigh escaped Virgil, he had to get that stupid theatre literature book quickly, before he would get lost on memory lane.

As Virgil opened the door a little bell rang. Virgil jumped, he hadn’t walked inside of the store for so long that he had completely forgotten about the bell. The man behind the register send him a reassuring smile, but didn’t approach him. Virgil was thankful for that. He hated clingy salesmen and was not really in the mood for small talk, especially not with that particular man. He walked, with his head down, towards the shelfs underneath the sign “Academic Literature” and started his search. 

The inside of the bookstore continued the color scheme of the facade. The shelfs were made of black painted wood. While some walls were light blue and some were white. The door to the back with a golden “private” sign on it was also blue. The desk were the register was placed on was made out of the same material as the shelfs, but contained some stickers with very bad book puns on them. 

Even though Virgil had not been here in years, nothing seemed to have changed. At least if his memory wasn’t deceiving him, he could never be to sure about that. Even the little reading corner for the kids was still there. In the back corner of the store was a little space with beanbags, pillows and chairs in all different shapes, sizes and colors. It was an odd sight if you compared it with the neat and classic design of the rest of the store, but it somehow still fit in the overall setting. 

Virgil used to come here often when he was a kid, but now he doubted that the man behind the counter, who he used to call uncle Pat, would still recognize him. A lot can change in 10 years, Virgil thought to himself as his eyes slid over the titles of the books on the shelf in front of him. For once in his live Virgil actually seemed to have some luck as there were still 2  
Copies of the book he needed. He thought about buying both, because with his usual luck, he would probably lose the book halfway through his semester, but decided against it because he was broke enough as is. He grabbed one of the books and started walking to the register when he saw a book his mother used to read to him. He didn’t have the money to buy it, he really didn’t, but just reading a few chapters of it while still at the store should be okay right? After all, he used to read here all the time. Virgil made up his mind, he grabbed the book and hid behind a shelf where he slid down against the wall across from the shelf. Just a few chapters and then he would buy his stupid theatre literature book and be on his merry way.

About two and a half hours later Roman arrived at the campus library. He left all his stuff in his car while he ran inside. The building was old on the outside but very modern on the inside with a white floor, white walls and a high ceiling. Roman didn’t know why he was running. The book was either there or it wasn’t and running towards the theatre, film and television section of the library didn’t ensure Roman of getting the book he needed. When he reached the shelf the book was supposed to be on Roman let out a groan. Of course Roman wasn’t the only one who had forgotten to buy the book 3 weeks in advance and of course the book he needed wasn’t there anymore.

Roman decided to walk to the front desk of the library to ask when the book was due to be returned, but he didn’t get the answer he was wishing for. Someone had rented the book for the entire semester. In other words Roman was already fucked for this course before it could even begin.

With nothing left to do Roman decided to drive to the nearby town to get some lunch. Since the college cafeteria was still closed because of the holidays. He first dropped of his clothes and some other things he had brought from home at his dorm room and then he drove off into the sunset. Well... maybe not the sunset, because it was only 2 o’ clock in the afternoon, but Roman just liked to be dramatic from time to time... or maybe all the time.


	3. What building has the most stories?

Roman arrived at the only Starbucks of the small town at around 2:15 pm. With how small the town was it was a wonder it even had a Starbucks, but lots of students got there coffee here because the coffee at college was horrible, so that must have something to do with it. Roman got himself a triple chocolate muffin and a caramel and cream frappe to cheer himself up, not really caring about the amount of calories he was about to consume. He was in good shape after all. Even though he gained a few pounds during his first one and a half year at college, he wasn’t a good cook so he mainly ate takeouts and pre-made salads, he definitely wasn’t overweight and he was quite muscular, from all the swimming he did. Nothing competitive, he just liked to swim and the campus had a big pool complex, which was never really busy.

A girl a few years younger than Roman walked into the Starbucks. She was reading a book and almost walked straight into the sandwich display. She apologized to the piece of furniture, before looking even more embarrassed than before for apologizing to an inanimate object. 

Roman gave her a small smile before he walked to the other side of the counter to wait for his frappe. The girl was carrying a linen bag with the text “what building has the most stories? The bookstore!” And a logo of Logicality bookstore. While Roman was waiting he complimented the girl on her bag, which started a conversation between the two. The conversation went about the girls love for reading, which in turn led Roman to compare her with Belle from Beauty and the Beast, he was a huge Disney geek after all. The Girl had laughed and teasingly called Roman, Gaston, which drew some offended noises out of the man. 

When Roman started to complain about not being able to find the book he needed for his college course, the girl happily suggested him to go to the bookstore her bag was from, since they sold academic books as well and she was quite sure she had seen the Book Roman was looking for, when she visited the store earlier this morning. Roman thanked the girl and at that moment his order was ready so he got his lunch, said goodbye to the girl and started to walk outside. He could just hear the barista call out a caramel macchiato for Mari before he left the cafe in search for Logicality, the bookstore.

Logan cleared his throat. “Salutions young man, you do understand that you are currently located within a store and not a library?” He asked. “Since it is highly unusual for someone to buy a book after having already read it, i would request you to either buy the book and read it at home or another place where you feel comfortable, or put the book back on the correct spot on the shelf where you got it from. This is a store after all and or primary objective is to sell books, and not to have people reading them still inside of the store, sitting on the floor next to the geography section” 

If Virgil hadn’t known Logan when he was younger he was sure that the almost robotic tone of the man standing in front of him would have driven him close to an anxiety attack. Virgil blushed after being caught and realizing he had already read half the book. How long had he been in there? Virgil stood op muttering an apology towards Logan without looking him in the eyes. With his head down Virgil walked towards the shelf he had gotten the book from, placed it back at it’s correct spot and walked to the register with his theatre literature book. 

Patton didn’t expect the boy to actually buy something, when the boy had disappeared behind the shelfs 2 hours ago, he had started to worry over him, but he was to scared to investigate what was going on. So he had alerted Logan with the button he had under his desk. The button send a signal towards the back which told the person in there to get to the front of the store. Most of the time it was used when the store got busy or when Patton had to leave the register for one reason or another. But now Patton had asked Logan to check on the boy dressed in blacks and purples who hid in the geography section with a couple of books. Patton was scared that the boy might have fainted or maybe that he was scoping out the store to steal from them! He didn’t like to think this badly about people, but unfortunately as a store owner he had to. 

When the boy was about to leave the store, with the book that had cost him half of his salary from this month, he was run over by another young man from about the same age. Patton immediately started shipping the two together, it was the start of a ‘love at first sight romance.’ Patton was sure of it. Logan shot Patton a knowing, but slightly disapproving look, before leaving towards the back of the store again. Patton really had to stop mentally pairing people with each other without their knowledge or consent, he thought to himself before disappearing behind the blue door.


	4. When the prince meets the emo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman and Virgil finally meet.

Virgil was once again sat on the floor of the bookstore, but this time it wasn’t to quietly read a book. No the man in front of him had knocked him down when he had ran full force into the store. Virgil wondered that if he hadn’t already opened the door the man had ran into it instead of into him. He mentally laughed at the image of the handsome man’s face squished on the glass parts of the door. 

Wait... handsome? Well shit...

The man in front of him was a few inches taller than him, but that was hard to see from sitting on the floor. 

Shit Virgil was still sitting on the floor he really had to get up. 

The handsome stranger had a sharp face with the most beautiful blue eyes. His brown hair was about two tones lighter than Virgils natural hair color, which was hidden behind black and purple hair dye. 

The man reached out his hand towards Virgil to help him up, which pulled Virgil’s attention away from the man’s face and towards his clothes. He was wearing a white T-shirt with ‘Royalty’ written on it in elegant gold letters and a red leather jacket against the chill winter weather. To finish it of the man was wearing light wash denim jeans and brown boots. 

Virgil grabbed the man’s hand and muttered out his second apology of the day. He was stopped from hurriedly walking out of the store by the man gasping and pointing at the book miraculously still in Virgils left hand. 

————————————-

Roman had eaten his lunch, while looking at his phone to find the address of the bookstore. When he had found it he had started to walk there, but soon got impatient and started running, not caring about just having eaten his lunch. When he ran towards the door of the store he was almost afraid of not being able to stop in time and running straight into it, but the door miraculously opened and instead of running into the door he ran into the man who had opened it... oh...

The man now sitting on the floor in front of him was not really Roman’s type, but something about him made Roman reconsider. He had a pale face, with either smudged eyeliner or bags under his eyes. But somehow Roman thought it looked extremely attractive... 

wait what?! 

The man’s hair was black, with the top dyed plum purple. Matching his black hoodie with purple patched stitched on it. He was also wearing black skinny jeans and pretty rundown black converse. 

Oh goodness Roman was being terribly impolite, just leaving the man sitting on the floor. He mentally scolded himself for that, but he just got to distracted looking at this emo nightmare in front of him. 

Roman held out his hand and after some hesitation the other man took it and got on is feet again. Roman let go and thought he heard to other man mutter an apology when his eyes glanced over the man’s left hand and saw the book he needed. 

Formalities completely forgotten, Roman pointed at the book and gasped. 

“You got that book from here?!” He asked already getting hopeful.

“No, I got it from the baker across the street” Virgil answered, reaching his limit of social interaction of the day. He couldn’t help but smirk at the handsome stranger though. 

“Well, J-Delightful, I need that book for one of my college courses and I have a feeling I’m not going to find it at the baker, so if you could step aside.” Jeez this man really managed to rile Roman up already. “Please” Roman added after a few seconds when the emo hadn’t moved and Roman realized how rude he had been. 

“Sure thing, Princey.” Virgil said before moving aside ready to walk out of the store. “Uhm... academic literature is the third shelf to the right.” He said awkwardly while fidgeting with the sleeve of his hoodie. All the tension of today was starting to get to him and this handsome man wasn’t really helping to keep Virgil’s anxiety away, but still Virgil felt like he wanted to keep the conversation going. 

“Thanks” Roman said, surprised that the other man was willing to help him after their rude interaction earlier. The tension between the two men seemed to have slowly faded away, but the conversation didn’t continue.

Roman had found his book and was about to ask the stranger for his name, but the emo had already left the store. He asked the man at the register, who’s name tag read ‘Patton’, whether he knew the guy. Patton had to admit that he seemed familiar somehow, but couldn’t remember seeing him in the store before. Roman thanked Patton for the information, bought his book, which he already knew was way to expansive for how much he was actually going to read it, and left the store. 

“Well, have you thought of a name for them yet?” Logan asked Patton, standing in the doorway that lead to the back of the store. 

“Hmm not yet.” Answered Patton. “But I know they are perfect for each other! Did you see the way they totally got lost staring at each other!” He said excitedly. 

“No dear, I didn’t. I was in the back remember?” Logan chuckled.

“You should be in the front of the store more often, Lo. I’m starting to miss you.” 

Logan sight lovingly after hearing that and walked forward to hug Patton. This however set of a symphony of warning bells in Patton’s head, since Logan didn’t normally initiate physical contact, unless something was wrong. 

“You were looking at the sales again, weren’t you?” He asked “Don’t worry about it Lo. We’ll figure something out.” He said with a bright smile on his face. “We always have and always will.” And with those words Patton hugged his husband in the middle of their store. “Plus I just sold two expensive books in 15 minutes!” Patton giggled proudly in Logan’s shoulder.


	5. Master of the shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Opening a book on Pattons sad backstory for this chapter. (Oh I just made a dubble book pun ;P)

“So what was that boy doing in the geography section?” Patton asked during dinner. They had sold a few more books that day, before closing the store at 5. Patton had made his family recipe macaroni from the oven and they had settled at the dining table.

“He was just sitting on the floor reading.” Was Logan’s calculated answer. 

“What was he reading?” Patton pressed his husband, realizing he hiding something from him. 

I am afraid that I don’t know the answer of that, dear.” Logan knew exactly what book the boy was reading, but he wasn’t sure how to bring the news to Patton and he didn’t want to be the one to dampen the mood. 

Patton looked at him with a stern look one would expect a father to have, who had just figured out his teenage daughter had lied to him about sneaking out of the house. And Logan couldn’t ignore Patton’s normally soft brown eyes looking right through him. How Patton was always able to do that, Logan didn’t know. Logan decided to give in and tell Patton what he had seen. 

“The young man was reading ‘Master of the Shadows’ which if I remember correctly” and he does, but he won’t say that, because Patton has learned him that it would be rude for him to say something like that in a situation like this. “Is a youth book written by”

“Nikki.” Patton said softly finishing Logan’s sentence. 

“That is correct.” 

An awkward silence followed. The couple never spoke about Nikki Sanders anymore. Nikki was Patton’s older sister who died in a plane crash a little over 10 years ago. Patton and Nikki had always been really close, she was the first person he confessed his crush for Logan to, subsequently coming out to her at the same time. She had helped him coming out to the rest of his family and was responsible for getting Logan and Patton together. 

Nikki had the same dark brown hair as Patton, and also had similar soft brown eyes. She also shared his freckles and love for puns. She had a slim build and almost always wore pastel colors, and a big smile on her face.

The day Patton had heard she died, Logan had come home to find his husband crying on the floor clutching the house telephone. It had been a very awkward scenario, since Logan was even worse with navigating emotions back then as he is now, but Logan had managed to calm Patton down enough for him to tell Logan what had happened. After which both man cried holding each other close. 

The airplane had crashed just before landing, in a field near the airport and only one person had survived. A lot of people lost a loved one that day as the Airplane was filled up to the last seat. People who were returning from a holiday or business trip in Spain, or another European country and had gotten into that doomed plane that lifted of of Aeropuerto Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas, the airport at Madrid. Nikki and her husband and child had come from Italy but had to switch planes in Spain, before heading back to florida, but she would never set foot on American soil again.

The first time Patton had tried to read on of Nikki’s books during the children’s book readings, he had started crying which startled the kids. They had kept asking their ‘uncle Pat’ what was wrong, and if something had hurt him. Logan had to take over for Patton, something he never did, as he was better at hiding his emotions for the kids. That was the last time they had read one of her books during the readings, they still sold her books, because her being a writer made Patton want to have the bookstore in the first place, to be able to support her like she had supported him, but every time Patton sold one of her books he had to take a break and would switch places with Logan, who wordlessly accepted the switch, already knowing what had happened. 

The awkward silence was broken by Patton looking to the ceiling while saying. “You see sis, you should have listened to me and have written books about anti-gravity, since your books are still impossible to put down.” He chuckled sadly to himself, proud of his big sister for being able to let a young man, dressed like he was very edgy, lose track of time, with her writing.

Logan looked lovingly at Patton and both men continued their dinner, talking about less heavy topics than Nikki Sanders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys :)
> 
> Hope you’re enjoying this fic so far!  
> I’m going to need a boy’s name for the next chapter, so if you have any ideas, drop them in the comments.


	6. Angelo the dragon witch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman and Virgil figure out they follow the same theatre literature course and Virgil has a past.

It’s a week after Virgil had bought the book for this course and now he’s sitting at the back of the lecture room. He arrived early, because he was afraid of being too late and having to walk in during the lecture, with everyone probably looking at him. He didn’t like being the center of attention, he used to be for a long time, wether it was because of his weird name or something else, and he had hated every second of it. Even though he was early he still felt like he was the center of attention, because, other than the teacher, he was the only one there. 

The teacher, mrs. Mirx, must have thought that Virgil really liked theater literature, but that wasn’t true. It really was just the better of two evils. Virgil studied literature, because he wanted to be a writer and for this semester he had to choose between theatre literature and medieval literature, he chose the former, because, though he didn’t think any of them helped him in his career choice, theatre literature was probably the most helpful.

Roman was the kind of person Virgil had not want to be. he arrived 15 minutes into the lecture and all eyes were on him. He apologized to the teacher and sat himself down at the front of the lecture room seemingly unbothered about the attention he got and the people who stared at him.

Virgil had definitely been one of the people staring at Roman when the latter entered the room and it wasn’t long before Virgil started panicking. 

Shit, handsome prince guy followed the same course as him... well of course he did. Why else would he have needed the same book?! He hates me already... I already have one person in this class that hates my guts... and he’s fucking hot. Shit, Shit, Shit.

“Angelo Davide” 

Virgil was lost in his panicked thoughts until he heard the teacher call out that name, the name he had hated for a very, very long time. Since the day it had become the name he primarily used, actually. He knew it was for the better, but that didn’t mean he didn’t despise his second name. He knew Virgil was a weirder name than Angelo and he should probably be happy that nobody knew him as Virgil anymore, but it was the name he had grown up with and Angelo just didn’t feel right for him as a person. It was his grandfather’s name, not Virgil’s, well it was his name, but it just felt wrong.

Mrs. Mirx had forgotten to do the attendance sheet at the start of the lecture which was the reason she was reading it right now at the end. “Angelo V. Davide?” She repeated. 

“Yeah, yeah. Here” Virgil answered holding his right hand next to his face touching his head with his index and middle finger before turning his wrist a little in a small salute. Thinking about how his name was actually Virgil A. S. Davide.

Roman turned around recognizing the voice of this ‘Angelo’ from something. The moment he spots the hot boy from the bookstore he get’s excited. Thinking that maybe there was something good about this course. Don’t understand this the wrong way, Roman loved theatre, he just preferred actually being able to play, over reading about it. This course was part of his major in performing arts, and it was probably the most boring course in the entire major, but now that the emo nightmare was also taking this course, Roman at least had something or rather someone very attractive to look at. 

What was he thinking?! Since when did the extrovert, theatre prince, fall for the hopeless emo type, that looked like a... witch? No that wasn’t quite right... a dragon, like toothless from ‘how to train your dragon’, maybe? ...Closer but still not perfect.. a dragon witch? Yes that was it! The handsome prince had fallen for the terrifying dragon witch! What would he do? Will he approach the beast, or will he keep his distance, afraid that the dragon witch, Angelo, will break his heart. No a prince is never afraid! He shall...

“Roman Prince?” Mrs. Mirx stopped the fairytale starting to form in Roman’s head abruptly, by reaching his name on the attendance sheet.

“Present” Roman said confidently and kind of annoyed, that the teacher had to ruin his daydream. 

After Mirx had reached the end of the list, the lecture was finished. Roman decided to wait for the boy, he just learned was named Angelo. Not knowing that said boy hated that name, more than anything in the world.


	7. Angelo and Romano

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman is being a hopeless romantic, while Virgil is being a sarcastic little shit.

Roman was waiting in the hallway outside of the lecture room. Waiting for the dragon witch to walk out so he could slay the beast! Also known as waiting for Angelo to walk out so he could talk to him, but that doesn’t sound so exciting. Why he was so excited about this boy, he still wasn’t sure about that himself, but that wasn’t stopping him from approaching Angelo. 

“Hey, you’re Angelo right?” He asked the boy as soon as he was walking beside him. 

“Mhm.. yeah... I guess.” Virgil answered. Afraid the other man, who’s name he had already forgotten, would start insulting him for how he acted in the bookstore, or would make fun of his stupid Italian name. 

“I’m Roman, Roman Prince. I believe we already met a week ago at a bookstore?” It wasn’t really a question since Roman already knew the answer, but maybe Angelo had already forgotten about their first meeting. Ouch that thought stung a little.

Virgil was relieved that the man, Roman, wasn’t mad at him, but couldn’t help giving him a sarcastic answer as that was sort of the way he protected himself from possible insults yet to come. 

“Yeah.. Logicality bookstore. You decided to run into the door, but I opened said door at the wrong moment so you ran into me instead” Virgil said with a smirk. 

Well the sarcasm was certainly back. Roman thought before trying to continue the conversation.

“So Angelo-“

“So Romano.” 

“Hey! That’s not my name!” 

“It will be if you keep calling me Angelo.” 

“Well how else should I call you Hot Topic?

“Aww, you think I’m hot.”

“Wha... no that’s not what I meant.” Roman sputtered.

“You can call me Anx, probably a bigger chance I listen to that than to Angelo.” 

Why did Virgil say this? Anx or Anxiety was an old nickname of him, he had on his international school back in Italy. And let’s just say people didn’t really like him back there, but they did like to make fun of his anxiety disorder. Back there he was called Anx so many times that he had decided to just add that to the names he had to learn to listen to.

“Why? And is Anx like short for something or?” Roman couldn’t finish his sentence as Virgil decided to cut him short. 

“Short for Anxiety, which I have and you are starting to make me go into panic mode with your never ending questions” if there was one thing Virgil had learned from his time at the international school it was that people usually backed of as soon as you mentioned you had anxiety. With Roman that didn’t seem to work however. 

“Sorry I didn’t mean to be rude.” Roman apologized. “I’ll call you Anx from now on... If you really want me to of course!” Ugh why was this man making Roman so flustered?

The two walked next to each other in silence until they reached the front doors of the building they were in. 

“Well.. uhm... see you around, Princey.” Virgil said turning right to go to the bus stop. 

“Wait, where are you going?” Wow Roman. Totally not sounding desperate here. 

“You’re asking questions again, Princey” Virgil said with a smirk that could almost be seen as an actual smile. 

“I just thought that I could maybe walk you, I mean with you, to your dorm.” Damn Roman was being a hopeless romantic. 

“Aww, Princey is trying to be a prince charming.” Virgil chuckled, before lazily saluting as a goodbye. “I live in the next town over so I don’t have a dorm room”

“Oh. In that case. See you around Angelo, uhm Anx.”

“Whatever Romano.”


	8. People ‘wisp’ they knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil has a plan, but thing don’t go the way he wants to and then he meets a friend from his past.

Virgil took the bus from campus to his hometown. He hated every form of public transport, but since he didn’t have money for a car and a bike would be dangerous on most roads he had to drive over, he had to take the bus. That or he had to walk and that would probably have taken him about one and a half hour to get home.

Virgil didn’t head home right away though. He had a plan to get some more experience actually writing, instead of just reading about writings. And since theatre literature was his only course this semester he finally had the time to make his little plan work. 

He went to the public library first and though he hated talking to strangers who were his age or older, they always had something to hide, just like he did himself, he managed a conversation with the librarian. It still didn’t work out as she shot his idea down, saying there was no room or money to accommodate it. Virgil explained he just wanted to do it for the experience and wouldn’t ask for any of the money that might be raised, but that still didn’t solve the spacial issue. An issue Virgil didn’t see as there was a huge reading area in the library, but apparently that was reading only and Virgil left the library empty handed. 

Virgil knew he could probably hire a room in the community center, but that would cost money and that was not something Virgil had at the moment. There was only one other place he could think of, but he was scared to go there. Logicality bookstore. 

Last time he was inside the store he hadn’t really made a great ‘first’ impression, sitting behind a shelf reading for 2 hours. Thereby he was scared that the owners wouldn’t trust him. He knew that Patton wanted to see the best in people, but when children were involved he would go full on ‘dad’ mode and Logan already didn’t seem to trust him. Virgil didn’t blame him for that. He must have looked real stupid, dressed all edgy hidden behind a shelf reading a youth novel. Like what idiot college student would do that?! Apparently Virgil A. S. Davide would.

Virgil had been staring at Logicality’s shop window for around 10 minutes now. Great this wasn’t really helping with them already thinking you are a creep Virgil. He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t, he turned on his heels about to just run away and hide in his apartment until he had to go back to school, when he bumped into Marinka (Mari) Wade. Mari was a few years younger than him, but they had been friends for years and she was about the only person he kept in touch with when he lived in Italy. 

“Hey V, finally setting foot in the bookstore again?” She asked curiously. “Or are you just being a creep looking through the window?”

Virgil pulled the sleeves of his hoodie in his fists. Mari could always read him like a book. (pun definitely intended) she already knew he was feeling like a creepy cookie. 

“You know.. they wouldn’t mind if you actually went inside?” Mari said.

Virgil chuckled. “Well I didn’t actually made a good impression last time.”

“Wait you already went in without telling me?! What kind of best friend are you?” Mari asked surprised and very overdramatic, she kind of reminded Virgil of Roman, which might be why it was so easy to be sarcastic with him.

“Oh I didn’t know we were best friends” Virgil joked which led Mari to stick out her tongue towards him. 

“But yeah, I ended up reading one of the books my mom... used to read to me when we were younger. 

“So?” 

“I had been reading it for two hours! Logan found me behind a bookshelf and I could see the look on his eyes when he saw the book...” 

“That’s weird, Logan is almost never in the front of the store anymore. And I should know, because I come here everyday.” 

“Why?”

“I don’t know, maybe he doesn’t like working with costumers anymore?” 

“No, I’m mean yes it is weird, but why are you in there every single day?” Virgil said pointing at the store.

“Well when you had just moved. I was to young to understand that moving to another country meant that you would not come to the store anymore, so I kept asking my parents to take me there in case you were there too.” Mari said blushing and obviously very embarrassed. “After that it just kinda became a habit to visit the store every day. It did really get me into reading though, so I guess that’s a plus!” They both laughed at that comment and Virgil was touched by the story. 

“But now the question is...” Mari started “are you going to follow me into the store and actually meet me there like I hoped you would when I was a little girl?” 

Virgil knew this was a tactic to get him over his fear of walking inside again, by pretending he wasn’t doing it for himself, but for Mari. Still he let Mari drag him inside the store, where they were met with the always cheerful Patton. 

“Hey Belle! Sorry we don’t have any new books today, but I could check with Logan when the new books are ‘booked’ to arrive so you don’t have to come in everyday. Oh you brought a friend!” 

“Belle? You come here every day and he still doesn’t know your name?” Virgil whispered to Mari

“Well I like the nickname to much! Thereby does he know yours?” She whispered back.

Virgil started blushing, because well... she had a point there. 

“Now, Now kiddos it’s not nice to whisper in front of people. It makes them ‘wisp’ they knew what you were saying” Patton smiled brightly, even though it wasn’t his best pun. 

“We were just talking about nicknames, Pat.” Mari said smiling. “Well if there are no new books I think I’ll come back tomorrow” and with that Mari left the store and Virgil was alone with Patton.

“So kiddo, you have a nickname?” Patton asked to try to calm the young adult down, who for some reason got really anxious as soon as Belle left. 

“Yeah... Anxiety” 

From that moment Virgil’s faith was sealed and he was officially Patton’s ‘poor little anxious baby’ well only in Patton’s head of course.


	9. Anxiety and Creativity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil gets to explain his plan.
> 
> Also kind of a misleading title ;P

Patton was using his new found knowledge of the boys nickname, to create a shipname for the boy in front of him and the boy who had ran into him about a week ago. Didn’t he call the other boy Princey? That would mean their shipname would be... Anxey? Anxince? Prinxy? Prinxiety! Patton was fighting the urge to audibly gasp at finding the perfect shipname for the two boys he had only seen once before while he didn’t even know if the boys had seen each other after their first meeting.

While Patton was lost in thought, Virgil approached the register. He had to stop himself from calling Patton Pat, because to be honest they didn’t actually know each other. Virgil just happend to have been in this store a lot when he was younger, so maybe they knew each other back then, but now? No now they didn’t know each other. Still he knew Patton wouldn’t be mad if he did call him Pat, but it just felt really awkward and Virgil just couldn’t do it. 

“I’m sorry... sir, but actually I was wondering something” 

“And now you’re Anxiety?”

“What?”

“You just said you were wondering something, but you just told me your nickname was anxiety. I think it’s a great name change. Wondering something is a little long and not really catchy” Patton said with a reassuring smile. He could see why the boy’s nickname was Anxiety, he seemed so nervous about just being here talking to Patton. He wanted to give the boy a hug and ask him what was wrong, but also realized that would probably freak the boy out even more. 

Virgil did smile back at Patton after his horrible joke though. 

“But what did you want to ask, kiddo?” Patton asked after seeing Anxiety calm down a bit. 

“Wel I’m a literary student at the nearby college, and I was wondering if, maybe... no nevermind. It’s a stupid idea anyway.” 

Virgil was about to walk away when someone other than Patton decided to react to his statement.

“Not a single question or idea is as you put it ‘stupid’, it’s what the person, who has them, does with them that is or is not foolish.” It was Logan who had walked out of the back to stretch his legs, and had heard the last bit of the conversation. 

“Oh like that time I really wanted to have hot chocolate, like really, really bad. So I made it, but didn’t wait for it to cool down and burned my tongue!” 

“Yes Patton, something like that.” Logan said lovingly and clearly used to Patton taking something he said and turning it into an analogue of something that happened to him. “You see, young man, Patton’s Idea to have hot chocolate, may not have been a bad idea, but his decision to drink it immediately after heating it up, made him burn his tongue.” 

“Well what if me telling you about my idea is a stupid decision?” Virgil said quietly. 

“You won’t know that if you never tell us.” Logan said, while Patton was nodding his head enthusiastically. 

“I... I was wondering if I could like rent... well not really rent because I don’t have the money for that, but like use? A part of the store to give a creative writing class or maybe more... if people like it.” Virgil was talking really fast and that made Logan worry if the young man was even able to give a class which would require him to talk to others. 

That was not Logan’s only worry however. “I assume you understand that we can’t give you a space in our store for your plans to use for free” he said pondering. 

“Aww but Lo, it could get more people to visit the store!” Patton pleaded, wanting to help his poor little anxious baby. 

“You could ask money for it and keep that as a way of me paying for the space” Virgil said, starting to grow more confident around the two men.

Logan still had his doubts about this whole creative writing class, but Patton was looking at him with his puppy dog eyes, obviously already smitten for the boy dressed in black in front of them. And maybe this could be a way to get a little more money, which would benefit the store. 

Logan head made up his mind. “Well... I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t know your name.” 

“Angelo.” Virgil said, cringing internally. 

“Well Angelo, I believe we would be able to arrange something.” 

Logan’s comment seemed to make Patton happier than Angelo. But then again, the boy was hard to read. And Virgil really was happy, just also scared, very scared. 

“Of course we are going to have to make a contract, will we make this kind of arrangement. I will be able to set up a contract this afternoon. Are you able to come around the store tomorrow, to look over the contract and sign it?”

Virgil nodded still in a sort of haze, waved goodbye and walked out of the store, where he bumped into both Mari and Roman.


	10. I don’t interfere with your love life, I’m not your mom!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil, Mari and Roman get to know eachoter a little better

“Oh... Hey Angelo.” Roman said awkwardly. He had driven his car from the dorms to the small town to get some Starbucks, when he had seen Mari leaving the bookstore and had wanted to thank her. She however had been to focused on her friend who she had left inside, alone with the owners. Roman noticed that both Angelo and his new friend Mari cringed at the name. 

“Oh god, people actually call you that?!” Mari said in shock looking at her best friend. 

“Well, I told Romano over here to just call me Anx, or I would call him Romano, but I guess he just likes that.”

Mari and Virgil laughed at the offended face Roman pulled after being called Romano again. It’s not his fault that Angelo doesn’t like his own name. Though he does wonder why that would be. 

“What were you talking about with them, anyway?” Mari asked Virgil while pointing at the store, after they had stopped laughing.

“Asked them if I could use the bookstore to give some creative writing classes.. to uhm.. you know. Get writing experience outside of college and stuff...” Virgil didn’t like the attention being shifted from Roman to him. Especially not with Roman still there. Would Roman think Virgil was stupid for wanting to become a writer? Did he have to explain why he wanted to? He couldn’t do that! Before Virgil could get completely lost in a downward spiral Mari decided to speak up. 

“So is this the guy who ran into you last week, anx? Cause if it is then I might have had something to do with that....” she never used the nickname Anx when she was alone with Virgil, but this had been how he wanted Roman to call him. And honestly everything was better than Angelo, that name just reminded her of Virgils grandpa, who she had met only once, when he had come to Florida, for a funeral. Not that she had really understood what a funeral was back then. She had been six at the time, and didn’t understand why everyone was so sad, while they were usually very happy people. She also didn’t understand why Virgil’s grandparents were even there, as they had never come to America before, but she remembered them being nice people, who were trying to interact with her and make her feel part of the experience even though she didn’t know exactly what that experience was. Actually, Virgil’s grandmother Caterina had told her stories about...

“Earth to spaceship Marinka... Mari you still there?” Virgil snapped her out of her thoughts. “I asked you how you had something to do with Roman bumping into me? Were you trying to set me up with him or something?” Virgil regretted saying that as soon as he realized that Roman was still there. Did he really just come out to the hot guy that will be in his Theatre Literature class every week for the next 10 weeks? 

Roman however could be happier. Did he just find out that Hot Topic, the Emo Nightmare, was totally gay?! And that he might have a chance, because said emo thought his friend was trying to set them up, and friends would only do that if the other was their type, right???! Roman had to step up his flirt game! 

“Eww no! Just told him where the store was so he could buy his stupid school book.” Mari said with mock disgust on het face. “I don’t interfere with your love live, I’m not your mom!” The three laughed about that, but one of them had gotten real good at faking a laugh over the years. 

After talking for a little longer the three headed back to their respective homes, not after Roman offering his new friends a ride home, which they declined, because they were both headed in different directions and both lived at walking distance of the store. Roman walked back to his car encouraged to try and woo Angelo the next chance he got. For that to work he should probably stop calling him Angelo though... he drove back to his dorm. His Starbucks coffee a long forgotten memory.

Mari left to her parent’s house excited to tell her parents she had actually seen Virgil again and had talked to him in real life instead of over text or via a rare phone conversation, if Virgil was up for it, for the first time in years. Even though Virgil had been back in town for more than a year already, the two just never had the chance to meet (and maybe Virgil was anxiously avoiding it, afraid Mari wouldn’t like him anymore after they had seen each other in person again). However for Mari it still felt as if Virgil had never left and they had picked it up right where they left up too! In front of the bookstore, where Mari had last seen him.

Virgil walked home with mixed feelings and doubting everything he had said in every conversation he had that day. And he had a lot more conversations with people than he normally had. It had mentally drained him if he was being honest, but the day seemed to have been a success, or had everything gone horribly wrong without him even realizing it! What if he comes back to the bookstore tomorrow and Logan tells him he had thought about it logically and that he didn’t want Virgil to use the store for his plan? What if Roman doesn’t like him wanting to be a writer? What if Roman wasn’t into men and he had just outed himself towards this random man, who made him doubt every decision in his life? Oh no wait... that was just his anxiety. Oh God Roman calls him Anx now and he knows it stands for anxiety. Roman knows he has an anxiety disorder... Wait.. why is he still thinking about Roman?


	11. FamILY names

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil signs the contract

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took me a while.. got some problems with my own anxiety yesterday, but I’m good now :)

The next day Virgil went back to the bookstore, but this time he was completely alone. It was a Wednesday morning and since Mari was only 16 she didn’t have a relaxed college schedule that only had 3 days of school, like Virgil did. Virgil was only following one course at the moment so he only had school at Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Virgil knew that coming to the store in the morning was the best way to avoid a crowd and maybe avoid Mari too. He didn’t expect Roman to be there either and nobody else in town really knew who he was or cared about him. Virgil was sure of it, this was the best time to go to the store and hopefully sign a contract, so he could start giving his creative writing classes to whoever was interested. He was hoping he could target it towards kids, but he’ll have to talk about that with Logan... oh... yeah he had almost forgotten... this contract he had to sign was made up by Logan. He was kind of going to work in the close proximity of both Logan and Patton. If Virgil wasn’t nervous before he was now, but who are we kidding here Virgil is always nervous. 

He was surprised to find Logan standing inside the store reading a story to a little girl. Logan had definitely gotten better at telling stories and actually seemed to enjoy it, but it was still an odd sight, seeing the man that Virgil only knew as logical and serious, like he wears a necktie everyday, that’s like the epitome of seriousness, read a story with so much enthusiasm. Virgil could only guess that a lot can change in 10 years.

Patton beckoned him over from behind the register and told Virgil he had to wait a little before he could sign the contract, because Logan was better at dealing with that kind of thing and he was obviously busy at the moment. 

Apparently the young girl’s mother had forgotten to bring her bag from the car so she couldn’t pay for the book the girl wanted. Patton had offered to watch the girl, but the little angel had wanted him to read to her. And for some reason he couldn’t do that, so Logan had stepped in. 

That struck Virgil as odd, until he realized the last book reading he had been to, where Patton had started crying. He didn’t remember why though... what was the book he was reading from again? And was it even important to remember that book? maybe it didn’t have anything to do with it? Patton crying wasn’t a rare sight after all. But those were definitely sad tears... at least he thought they were... Virgil didn’t really remember much of his last few months before he left to Italy. Everything had been a blur back then. And now he should probably be thankful for that.

When the woman came back from the parking lot she thanked Logan and went to the register to pay for the book. Logan noticed Virgil and asked him to follow him to the back. Virgil had always been curious about the mysterious blue door that lead to a room hidden from the general public. 

The room was filled with papers, some needly organized, others scattered over a small wooden desk. There was another door to the right of the room which Virgil guessed was a bathroom. The room had a TL-light on the ceiling, but that one was switched of and instead a standing lamp near the entrance and a desk lamp on the desk lit the room up. There were also a few more bookcases with extra copies of books in the store and some books that probably weren’t for sale. The desk chair was old and worn down from the long hours Logan sitting there, but it was still functional. 

Logan sat down on the chair and handed Virgil the contract. He gave Virgil the time to read it and they discussed it together. Then came the difficult part. Virgil had to sign the contract and had to write his full name down. Well not his full, full name, but his first and last. Angelo V. Davide, it really wasn’t that difficult, but what if Logan recognized the name? The Davide family never really got along with the Sanders family... mainly because they were against Patton and Logan being together. Patton and Logan must have been happy when Virgil’s family left to live in Italy...

“Are you alright Angelo?” Logan asked making an effort to show a small amount of concern on his face. “Is there something within the contract that is not satisfactory for you?” 

Virgil quickly shook his head and wrote down his name and signature. Davide was one of the most popular Italian last names... he tried to reason with himself. 

But how many of those Italians live in a small town in Florida? His anxiety bounced back. 

Logan however seemed unfazed by the name, which made Virgil relax a little more in some small talk with the man. For the first time since Virgil had come to the store, Virgil dared to look Logan straight in the eyes. His eyes were an icy blue, that matched with the fact that most people saw him as cold hearted. Virgil knew he wasn’t cold hearted though. Logan’s interaction with the little girl earlier was enough to prove that. Logan just had some difficulty showing emotions, his face mostly perfectly calm, collected and maybe sometimes a bit angry, in a sort of resting bitch face. Logan was wearing a blue tie and black button-up shirt as usual in combination with a pair of jeans and some dress shoes. 

After chatting for about fifteen minutes Virgil left the store knowing that his first creative writing class would be next Saturday and that it was targeted towards teens. Virgil was nervous about it, but a good kind of nervous, butterflies and stuff. Kind of how Roman made him feel... shit! Virgil seriously had a crush for that overdramatic idiot!

Announcement signs for the creative writing class were made that afternoon by Patton, but Logan had the final say in the design, because otherwise it would just be littered with pictures of cats and dogs, that have nothing to do with writing. Well unless you are writing about cats and dogs...

When Saturday arrived and Virgil got out of bed at 2 PM after a very restless night, he was absolutely terrified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the next chapter on a lot will be revealed about Virgil so stay tuned for that!


	12. Nikki Sanders and Micheal Davide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why the Sanders’ and the Davide’s don’t get along.

It was 2 PM, one hour before the creative writing class was set to start, and Angelo wasn’t at the bookstore yet. Logan didn’t like this one bit. Especially after taking another look at the contract. 

Logan was shocked when he saw the name it was signed under. Davide. Logan was almost sure that every Davide that had lived near the bookstore had either left the area, or hated them. He had kept the information about the mysterious Angelo Davide to himself but as the time was slowly passing by, and Angelo was nowhere to be seen, he had to tell Patton. 

“Patton? Do you think Angelo is going to turn up?” He asked, still thinking about how he was going to bring the Davide family into the conversation without upsetting Patton. 

“Of course he is! You know how Italians are Lo! ...Well I assume he’s Italian” He laughed “they always say ‘ten more minutes’ when it actually takes another hour.” 

Logan looked at Patton as if he searched for something, not even sure what he was searching for himself until he found it. That said little twinkle in Patton’s eye that was only there when he thought about something involving Nikki. 

“Hey Lo? Remember that time when Micheal was going to drive us to the airport, but he was running late and you called a taxi instead, because when we called him he said he was ten minutes away and you just knew he had forgotten about it and was still in bed, so I called Nikki and she said you were right, and that Michael was still laying next to her in bed, and then she asked if we still needed that lift, but the taxi had just arrived and then we made it to the airport just in time!”

“I certainly remember that Patton, that was quite the interesting start to our honeymoon. Logan smiled lovingly at Patton. “You don’t expect Angelo to have forgotten about his own idea, do you?”

“Nope, but you seem to doubt that he’s going to show up.” Patton looked at Logan expectingly, because he knew Logan must have a good reason to believe that, other than Logan himself being very punctual.

“Wel it is coincidental that you mentioned Micheal earlier.” 

“Why’s that?”

“Angelo’s last name, or at least the name he put on the contract, is Davide and you know how the Davide family thinks of us...” An awkward pause followed after Logan said that. 

“I thought the Davide family left the area after they unfairly won the court case...” 

“Pat, they didn’t-“

“Yeah they did! They didn’t like us being together and neither did the judge! They thought we were unable to raise a kid, because we were two men who love each other and got married to show that to the world, proudly!” 

“Pat, they won because they were Micheal’s parents. Directly related to the boy, through their bloodline.” 

“But I was directly related to Nikki!”

“Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way dear.” Logan looked at the pain in his husband’s eyes. Pain he caused by bringing up the Davide family and the obvious homophobic judge that worked their case. 

“I wonder what he’s up to these days.” Patton said, thinking of Nikki’s son, the boy who had survived the plane crash. The boy who became a news sensation throughout the entire United States. The boy who got so scared of everything, but mostly people, that he would spend hours hidden in his oversized hoodie listening to music. The boy he couldn’t save. His nephew. 

“I’m here! Sorry I’m late I overslept! I’mgoingtosetup, okay? Did someone arrive already? Please tell me nobody did!” Virgil had stormed into the store and started rushing as a madman to get everything ready for the class he was going to give. He was completely oblivious of the conversation going on before he ran in... and that’s probably for the better. It would have been quite a shock for Virgil to hear that conversation. And followed by the next shock, Virgil might have gotten a heart attack. 

Both Mari and Roman had decided to turn up for his class. This was either going to be great fun or hell on earth for the next hour and a half. And his anxiety made him lean towards hell on earth.


	13. Two frogs dancing in the rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s time for the creative writing class.

Despite Virgil’s and Logan’s original worrying, the creative writing class was going great. Patton had decided to join in as well, so Logan was manning the register. 

Virgil had a group of 9 participant between the ages of 14 and 20 and then there was Patton too. Virgil had decided to start with a 5 minute prompt exercise. He gave the group the prompt “rain” and 5 minutes to write a short story about it. Just to get the creativity flowing. 

Mari wrote a story about a frog who wanted to dance in the rain with his girlfriend, but then she actually fell of the lily pad and he couldn’t find her anymore, so he got scared, but she jumped up out of the water and scared him, which made him fall in too. 

Patton wrote about two rain clouds playfully arguing with each other and making lot’s of cloud puns in the progress. Well one of them did, while the other kept getting more and more annoyed with the first. When he told his story to the group he kept sneaking looks towards Logan, who was cluelessly sitting behind the register. 

Roman wrote about a prince trying to save his kingdom from a wizard, who had cursed his land with an endless amount of rainfall. But when the prince confronted the wizard with this information, the wizard told him it was raining because he was sad, so the prince had to try and make him happy for the rain to stop. Which the prince did of course. And they all lived happily ever after. 

Virgil had written a simple story compared to the stories he wrote when he didn’t have to read them out loud to people. The story was about a boy lost in the city streets at night while it was raining. He was looking for his parents, but they were nowhere to be found. Then the boy started singing a song about the rain, his dad had thought him. Which had a secret message hidden in it for the boy to always find his way back to them. The boy did find his way back to his parents, before the sun came up. They hugged each other before the parents disappeared into their graves, leaving the boy alone in the empty graveyard. 

Though Virgil didn’t really like his story, Roman thought it was amazing, especially because it was written in only 5 minutes! Mari agreed that it was really good, because she had never read one of Virgil’s and she didn’t know he was that good. Patton was almost crying and he had to be comforted by Virgil that the boy was going to be alright and that he probably had very nice foster parents. Virgil was a blushing mess after receiving so many compliments for his story and it got even worse when one of the older girls of the group started flirting with him, which almost made Mari roll over the floor from laughing as she knew that Virgil was very gay (for Roman). 

After everyone had read their story they went on to the next writing exercise. Everyone had to grab a random book from the store and give it to the person left from them and tell them to pick some information from a certain page number, and write a story about something on that page. Patton sat left from Virgil, who sat left from Roman, who sat left from Mari. 

Virgil picked out a children’s book for Patton, as it reminded him of the book readings and he didn’t want to challenge Patton to much. Roman did want to challenge the boy he knew as Angelo... oh no wait Anx... this boy had to many names... anyway he wanted to challenge him so he gave Anx a cookbook and choose a page with a pasta recipe on it, to make Angelo show his Italian roots. 

Mari however wanted to really challenge Roman. She was Virgil best friend after all and it was obvious they both liked each other! She had to test if Roman was boyfriend material. She grabbed an academic book about new media that looked like it was difficult to read and chose a page about simulation. This was definitely going to be a challenge. She just hadn’t realized who it was going to challenge most.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is going to be intense guys!


	14. Postmodern simulations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning! Descriptions of a staring panic attack and a plane crash ahead. 
> 
> Plane crash is written between the *** in case you want to skip it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been wanting to write this chapter since I introduced the idea of the plane crash. Hope it’s good enough

Virgil gave the participants 15 minutes to research what was on the page and think of an idea to write about. From then on the group had 30-45 minutes to write something and at the end the people who wanted to read their story got the chance to do that and get feedback from the others.

Roman was upset with Mari choosing an academic book for him, but he decided that an academic book, meant doing some academic style research... okay, maybe he just used Wikipedia, but it was still more research than the rest of the group was doing for their stories.

Through his research on simulation, Roman found out about Jean Baudrillard, who thought that a postmodern simulation was a copy without an original. Like the wild west houses in Disneyland that were modeled after houses from the wild west, even though that exact houses never existed. Baudrillard thought the media and thus the culture was full of those copies, and that was something Roman could write about! He just had to choose one of the examples and build a story around it! What could possibly go wrong?

When everyone had finished writing, Roman was the first person who wanted to read it to the rest. He was very proud of his story. He did have to explain why it had something to do with simulation before starting though and making everyone understand it wasn’t that easy. 

As soon as Roman read the title of his story, both Virgil and Patton flinched, but nobody noticed. The title was:

“The boy who survived the crash of 2008” 

Roman explained it was a made up story from information he remembered was in the media the days, months and years after the plane crash. And how this information formed the base for a simulation of the event. Like the one he had written. 

Virgil could have stopped him from reading it out loud. Saying that it could have been a sensitive topic for some of the people there. Mari could have stopped him, Patton could have stopped him, but no-one did. Everyone thought the others could handle it. 

Virgil’s skin however had started to itch and he was quick to grab his contact lens container from the pocket of his hoodie, to get the purple colored lenses out of his eyes, before they started itching too. This revealed his soft brown eyes, that reminded him so much of his mother, that he tried to hide them away so he didn’t have to think about his parents. He could feel he was going into sensory overload, but he could handle that. As long as he could keep a full blown panic attack at bay he should be fine. 

Roman started reading... and Virgil definitely wasn’t fine.

***

They were at the airplane terminal in Spain. The boy and his parents had just come from a family wedding in Italy and all were exhausted. However the boy was still curious and exited to be at the airport. There were so many interesting people, who all went to different destinations. He had asked his parents if he could ask the people where they were heading, but they had told him not to bother other travelers. 

When they finally boarded the plane, the parents allowed the boy to sit at the window seat so he could see the plane lift of. Later in the flight the boy switched to the middle seat so he could sleep with his head on his mother’s lap and his feet on his father’s. The flight was long, but not unpleasant. And after a couple hours the plane started the decent.

A few minutes into the decent the plane started shaking heavily. The shock was caused by a big bird that had flown into the left engine. The purser explained over the intercom that normally this wouldn’t have been a big issue as a plane is able to land with one engine. What they didn’t know was that this time it was a big problem, as the bird had damaged the fuel lines and the fire extinguish device installed in the engine, which meant the engine quickly caught fire. 

The boy was sitting at the right side of the airplane with his parents at either side of him. he was listening to music when the people on the left started screaming. He didn’t understand it. Yes the turbulence was bad, but why would they scream about it. His parents looked worried too and a strange smell started to fill the aircraft. Was that smoke? He quickly thought to himself. He thought people weren’t allowed to smoke in an airplane. 

When he removed his headphones, because he wanted to ask his dad why people were smoking, the plane started to shake again. More people were screaming and crying now and the boy thought he could see some people praying too. This is were he started to freak out as well. What was happening? Why was everyone sad and scared? Did something bad happen to the plane? Is that were the smoke came from? Were they going to crash?

The purser spoke over the intercom again. Telling the people in the cabin to stay calm as they were approaching the airport and would make it to the runway, where an emergency team was waiting for them. This calmed some people down, but at that exact moment the engine burned off the part of the wing it was attached to and fell of hitting and damaging the tail of the plane in the process, making the plane uncontrollable for the pilots. 

Everyone was screaming again as the plans started to dangerously tilt to the right. 

“Virgil sit like this” his mother screamed bending him into brace position before taking on the same position herself, like many other people on the plane did. After a lot of shaking and a very rapid decent the plane hid the ground hard, a few feet short of the runway. 

Hand luggage had fallen from the overhead compartments and hit the people sitting next to the aisle. And the oxygen masks had dropped from the ceiling on impact. Virgil’s whole body hurt and he wanted to cry. He was scared, but his father helped him to loosen his seatbelt and told him to get out as quickly as possible. He would help his mother and they would be right behind him. Virgil’s had to climb over his mother’s lap to get to the aisle. She didn’t look very good. Her face was white and bloody and she didn’t react to Virgil’s weight in her lap at all, but Virgil had no time to think about that as he made his way to the exit of the plane. 

Luckily for him, the impact had made a huge hole in the left side of the aircraft where he could crawl out of. As soon as he was out, firefighters swarmed him, bringing him to safety. He walked with them obediently and still a little bit in shock until he heard the explosion behind him. He turned around to see even more flames coming from the airplane and he immediately asked the firefighters if everyone had made it out the burning aircraft. The look on the firefighter’s face was enough to trigger Virgil’s first ever anxiety attack. The words spoken to him soon after made him go into shock and faint

“Sorry kid... you were the only one to get out in time...” 

***

Roman was explaining how he got all the information from the news and programs like ‘air crash investigations’ when Mari started noticing something was wrong with Virgil. His eyes were glossy and distant and he didn’t seem to be paying attention to what Roman was saying at all. Patton who was fighting his own emotions, but had listened to the story noticed Mari’s concerned look and followed it to the boy next to him. As soon as he saw the boy’s eyes he urged Roman to stop talking and got up to get Logan. 

Roman was offended until Mari nudged him to look at Virgil. 

Virgil was a mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will include an anxiety/panic attack, so you’re warned. Don’t worry to much, though. As the angst is followed by a lot of fluff!


	15. Why would Roman talk about jello?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning! Almost this entire chapter is a about a panic attack. Please read with caution!

Roman’s story was short, because he had waisted a lot of time figuring out what postmodern simulation or a simulacra was. When he finally found some examples he was just glad he could stick some of the information he had himself to an already existing framework of the simulation of an airplane crash. 

He had written about the boy who had survived, the boy who had been in the media since day one after the crash. It was an obvious choice for someone living in Florida writing about a plane crash. His story had started with some trivial things like the family’s holiday in Spain and the boy watching a Disney movie on the in flight television system. He hadn’t given the boy a name as he had forgotten what his real name was and didn’t want to get it wrong. He hadn’t even described the crash in much detail, because he couldn’t remember on what side the engine exploded and the media never explained how the boy had managed to get out. He didn’t think his story would be triggering. The event happened 10 years ago and he tried to not make the story to heavy.

Now Roman wished he had just written about the wild west houses in Disneyland though. He had been to Disney world Orlando often enough... he should have just made a story of someone going there, but he didn’t and now Angelo looked like he was about to cry or faint, or maybe both.

As soon as Patton had looked into The boy’s scared eyes he realized two things. They looked so much like Nikki’s and Micheal and Nikki named their son after Micheal’s father, whose name was Angelo. 

Patton wanted to scream for Logan to get here right now, but he didn’t want to upset the boy anymore than he already was. So he carefully got up and slowly walked towards the register, not before telling the group that the class was over and asking everyone to leave the store. 

Roman and Mari managed to get everyone out, without much protest, but they stayed themselves. Roman wanted to apologize to Angelo, but Mari stopped him, telling him that now was not the time. Together they kept an eye on Virgil who was totally zoned out, lost in his own panicked thoughts. Roman and Mari didn’t know what to do, but to wait for Patton to return. He knew what to do right? 

Patton definitely didn’t know what to do. He felt just as hopeless as he was 10 years ago in the hospital. He had tried to hug the kid and tell him jokes and that everything was going to be alright. And that was exactly what he wanted to do now, but Virgil hadn’t reacted very well to that back then. The only person who had been able to calm him down was Logan. So when Patton saw the panic in, who he now knew for sure, was his nephew’s, eyes he knew he had to get Logan. 

Logan was glad when he saw the class was over and Patton was approaching him. He was about to tell Patton about how if they kept this sort of activities going, they could increase their sales and wouldn’t have to struggle with money anymore, when he saw the worry on his husband’s face. Then Patton spoke one sentence, he had said to many times, but Logan expected to never hear it again. 

“Lo, Virgil is having a panic attack again.”

Patton went on explaining what had happened and why he thought that Angelo was actually Virgil, while Logan walked with him, back to the table where Virgil was now sitting alone, with a worrying Roman and Mari standing hopelessly on the side.

Virgil was lost. He hadn’t even heard Roman’s story, about what he imagined had happened. All he could think about was the screaming, the fire, his mother who wasn’t moving, the explosion, his dad who he later learned knew he couldn’t follow Virgil, because his legs were stuck under the chair in front of him, all the luggage and bodies he had to crawl over to make it to the hole in the plane. What he didn’t think of at the moment, but came back to haunt him now.

It was as if the smoke was filling his lungs again and he couldn’t breathe. He was breathing, but every breath was fast and panicked, and he could only feel the burn enter his lungs and not the oxygen he needed. The same burn seemed to have spread over his skin, leaving his hoodie to feel scratchy over his bare arms, but he couldn’t take it of anymore as he sat there completely frozen. At the same time the weight the hoodie provided over his shoulders was a little comforting and kept him grounded enough that he didn’t start sobbing. Yes, there were tears in his eyes, but he was not going to cry in front of the group, not in front of Roman.

Was Roman still telling his story? Virgil couldn’t tell. He couldn’t see through the tears anymore and there was so much blood rushing through his ears, that he could only hear his own heartbeat. 

“...Gelo?” Virgil heard someone say over the pounding in his ears. Which he quickly thought was weird why would Roman talk about Jello in his story? No wait this wasn’t Roman speaking anymore. Did someone notice he wasn’t paying attention? Shit... he’s supposed to be the one in charge here and he can’t even handle himself. 

“Angelo, can you hear me?” Logan tried again after getting no reaction the first time 

Virgil could here it clearly now, because he was trying his best to focus on the voice. Was that Logan? Why would Logan talk with his grandfather, and why would his grandfather even be here? No, wait... he was Angelo. He even forgot his own name... He is so stupid... So pathetic he shouldn’t have found his way out of the plane at all. it’s been 10 years and even now he’s still panicking over it. He’s stupid, a wasted life. His mother should have survived not him. He hadn’t even seen his father was stuck, he could have helped him, freed him. Helped the others he had crawled over to get to safety. 

Had he tried to answer Logan yet? No he hadn’t, he couldn’t react, couldn’t say he heard him. Pathetic can’t even say a single word. The fire on his skin and in his lungs got worse and itched like crazy. 

“Please blink for an extended period of time if you can hear me...” Logan looked at the boy’s eyes and saw the same Patton had seen earlier, so knowing he was taking a risk he ended the sentence with “Virgil” instead of Angelo.

Hearing that Virgil closed his eyes, making a few teardrops fall on his cheeks, to open them what he imagined should be a few seconds later. 

Logan let out a sigh and turned to Marinka, Patton and the boy who’s name he didn’t think he knew. 

“Marinka could you get a water bottle from the back area?” 

“Patton and uhmm...”

“Roman”

“Roman, why don’t you two go to the reading area, to calm yourselves down a bit. ...Oh and it would be appreciated if one of you could bring back one of the blankets from over there.”

When everyone was given a task and was not just standing there looking at them, Logan turned his attention back to the quivering Virgil in front of him. 

“Can you repeat the previous eye movement if it is okay for me to touch you?” 

Virgil blinked again, more tears finding his way to his cheeks. Then he felt a hand on his arm, leading his hand towards Logan’s chest, while another hand pressed reassuringly on his back, grounding him a little bit. 

“I need you to breathe with me Virgil, can you do that?” 

Another blink from Virgil. And he tried to match the movements of Logan’s chest but it was difficult. The hand on his back started moving to help Virgil with the otherwise so simple rhythm. More out than in, in for 4 hold for 7 out for 8, in and out. Slowly the breathing went from panicked to a breathing exercise, back to normal. Tears now freely leaking from Virgil’s eyes as he started to reach for Logan, wanting more body contact, with his calm and collected uncle. 

If Virgil had completely come back to his senses he would have realized that before today, Logan didn’t even know that he, “Angelo”, was in fact Virgil, but thinking hurt, so he rather just felt Logan’s embrace, just like after the panic attacks at the hospital. 

Mari had already put the water bottle on the table and went to sit with Patton and a very scared and confused Roman. Patton brought the blanket to Logan when he saw Virgil hugging Him. Virgil opened his eyes when he felt the weight of the blanket on his shoulders and pulled Patton in the hug. Not caring wether they knew who he was anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry for doing this to Virgil. Please forgive me! Things are going to be better for him from now on I promise!


	16. Pizza interrogations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Roman an Mari bonding time to give Virgil some time to calm down.

“Can someone explain me what in the name of the wizard of oz that was about?!” Roman said, well almost screamed, when Mari and him were alone. 

“Jeezz calm down, I’m the only one here! Wait... wizard of oz? Really?” Mari answered with a confused smirk, While trying not to laugh.

Mari saying that was the exact moment Roman realized why Angelo was friends with Mari. The two definitely shared the same sass and sarcasm levels. Which was great, because that was something Roman knew how to handle. He had to, after the two seminars he had shared with Angelo earlier that week. 

Angelo had seem so confident around him during those seminars that Roman almost forgot that the nickname Anx stood for anxiety. He had constantly shot back Roman’s every attempt to flirt with him and had a sarcastic answer to every pick up line in the books. At first Roman had gotten annoyed, but then it became a game of who could make the other blush first and damn both men were competitive. The friendship they had build over the last week was comfortable, like they had known each other for forever instead of just 2 weeks. Angelo reminded Roman of a character from his favorite from when he was younger. Someone who was smart and always knew what to say, but at the same time someone who had something to hide and was constantly hiding behind a carefully build up facade. 

The books were about a young painter’s apprentice in Rome during the renaissance. The painter had found the boy alone on the streets and had taken him in. He was hard for the boy, but taught him well. And the boy was really talented. In the end it turned out that the boy was part of a rich family and had seen them being executed for a crime they didn’t commit on the town square. He had managed to flee the scene and was living his life in the shadows afraid of his past catching up to him. 

Roman didn’t know the small parallels between the story and Angelo’s life. Angelo just acted like the main character a lot. Never asked questions and being vague about the question he answered. Yes. There was something mysterious about Angelo Davide and Roman was more determined than ever before, to figure out what mystery he had to hide.

Roman looked at Mari expecting her to explain what’s going on, but she just anxiously picket at the sleeves of her sweater. When her eyes finally met Roman’s she let out a sigh. 

“Okay look, I don’t think this is my story to tell... and I definitely don’t have all the details as I was six when all this went down... but...” Mari sighed again, not knowing what to say and if Virgil would get mad at her for saying anything at all. “Vir- Anx, lost his parents in that plane crash you wrote your story about... guess it just brought back some bad memories.” Mari knew that was an understatement, but she couldn’t tell Roman everything... if Virgil wanted Roman to know everything he would tell it to him himself.

“Oh...” 

“Yeah... but it’s not your fault! You didn’t know!” 

Mari looked at the owners of the store hugging Virgil tightly against them. 

“You know what? You can apologize to Anx later. Let’s leave them alone for a while.” She said while coming up with a plan to distract Roman from his guilty feelings, while also hearing him out, as a good bff would do to their best friend’s possible boyfriend material. She dragged Roman by the sleeve of his baseball jacket and walked to the door, making sure Logan saw them leave. She turned the open sign to at the door to say closed and walked out still dragging Roman with her. 

“So where are we going?” He asked trying to keep up with Mari. 

“Only the best place in Florida... well maybe except Disney World, but it’s still pretty great.”

Yup, Roman was sure of it. He liked Mari. And even though she was still a few years younger than him, he was sure they could be great friends. 

Mari took Roman to a pizza place with arcade just outside of the small town. Where they played some games before both ordering a small pizza, after Mari had told Roman how big the actually pizzas were. The small here, would be seen as a medium in most other places, but it definitely did not lack in quality. 

Roman had ordered a salami pizza, while Mari had chosen a Veggie pizza. And now they were sitting in one of the booths by the window. This was the time for Mari to commence operation ‘interrogate Roman’. 

“So... Roman, where are you from? I mean I’ve never seen you around before two weeks ago... So I assume you’re not from around here?” Well that was a horrible first question. This wasn’t really helping her finding out wether Roman was ‘boyfriend’ material for Virgil. Well better than nothing. 

“Uhm.. well I” This was definitely not what Roman was expecting. Roman had found talking to Mari very easy when they were playing games in the arcade or when he was talking with Mari and Anx, but now... this question felt forced. Like she was trying to find something about Roman, and Roman had no idea what it was. “I grew up in Orlando and my parents still live somewhere around there, but I moved to campus last year. I’ve been in this town a few times, but never went further than the Starbucks, until I met you and Angelo of course.”

Again Mari cringed at hearing the name Angelo

“Why do you always cringe when I call Anx, Angelo?” 

“No, no I’m the one who should be asking questions... oops forget I said that! Uhm... well I don’t really know him as Angelo so... I guess that’s it?” 

“You only know him as Anx?” 

“Something like that.. haha” Mari laughed sheepishly. She really should have consulted with Virgil, before trying to interrogate Roman. She had no idea what she could tell about Virgil’s life and what not. Wait she was trying to interrogate him, she shouldn’t have to be the one to answer the questions at all! 

Mari went back into interrogation mode and asked Roman questions about his past, his hobbies and his favorite foods. They had finished their pizza and were about to leave when Mari asked her last and most important question. 

“What’s your opinion on lgtbq+ people” 

Another question that caught Roman off guard. The conversation had been light for the last half an hour, but now he didn’t know what kind of answer Mari was looking for. 

“Uhm I’m gay so...” Roman really hoped this wasn’t the wrong answer. He really did like Mari’s company.

“Awesome! Me too.” Mari smiled at Roman and soon both of them were laughing, about how nervous the question had made both of them feel. 

Roman didn’t know Mari wasn’t asking that question for herself though.


	17. Virgil the shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but the next chapter will be a time jump and I didn’t want to do that halfway through a chapter.

When Virgil came back to his senses he felt very embarrassed for pulling both Logan and Patton into a hug, since he didn’t really know them that well. Luckily for him Patton decided to speak up after seeing Virgil blush and feeling him pull away.

“You didn’t do anything wrong kiddo.” He said. Talking both about latching on to them and about Virgil leaving everyone behind when he crawled out of the airplane, as Patton knew that Virgil felt guilty about that, when he was still in the hospital.   
“You’re here now, and here is exactly where you need to be.” 

“Mom should have lived, everyone should have lived.” Virgil murmured almost impossible to hear, but both man did. 

“Now, now, don’t spiral back into thinking negatively about yourself and putting the worth of someone else’s life above your own. Logan answered while he walked away from the half hug they were still entangled in. “Thereby I do believe your mother has lived on. Even if it was just through her stories.” He said while handing Virgil the book he had read when he first walked into the store again. ‘Master of the shadows’.

“And she, and your father also live on through you, Virgil!” Patton added, while hugging the boy tighter again. 

Virgil had missed this. He had missed his uncles terribly, but they could never come and visit him in Italy as his father’s family hadn’t told them where they lived or had kept any contact with them at all. Virgil had been mad about it at first, but had soon accepted the fact that he would probably never see them again, as the accident had made him terrified of flying. Still after the accident he had gotten a scholarship, because both his parents had died, and since he couldn’t study literature in Italy, because of his terrible knowledge of the Italian language. He had decided to move back to Florida. 

The flight had been horrible, but he had special assistance for people with a fear of flying, who were traveling alone. Which basically meant that the cabin crew kept an eye on him, to see if he was okay. When he finally arrived at the airport he had almost kissed the floor under his feet, before hopping into the one public transportation after the other, until he was finally back in his hometown. 

He had become a shadow in the city. Living there with nobody knowing who he was and nobody really caring. The same happened at college and Virgil didn’t really care about it that much. Until he was back at the bookstore for the first time in years and saw Patton and Logan again. Then he met Roman and later he walked into Mari as well. And in just 2 weeks, Virgil suddenly had contact with his mother’s side of the family again and he had real friends for the first time in years. Time really does pass by quickly he thought to himself while catching up with his uncles. 

It was the first time he got to hear their side of the story and he was angry when he learned the fact that he could have stayed in Florida all those years ago, living with Patton and Logan as his guardians. And that they had fought over his custody in court. His grandparents had never told him about this and he had had no say in the matter back then. 

It was already late when Virgil left Logicality Bookstore, to go back to his small apartment. When he got there he immediately went to bed, feeling exhausted after not getting enough sleep, having to talk to people and having a panic attack. He did finally manage to get a good nights sleep, so he guessed that was a plus?


	18. A N”ICE” addition to the group

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little time jump to help the story progress a bit quicker.
> 
> And the introduction of a new character!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day, because the last one was so short.

Time really does fly and before they know it it’s already may. Virgil and Roman don’t share a class together anymore since they’re both on different majors. Roman is doing more practical theatre stuff right now, while Virgil is learning about the styles of different authors. They still hang out though and of course Mari is there too when they do. They have become a tight group of friends, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for one more. That person being Theodore Ice. And yes he knows that is a horrible last name for someone living in Florida. 

Theodore, or Ted, was a very strong and athletic theatre major who shared his classes with Roman. They were also dorm neighbors, but had only become friends recently, well maybe a little more than that. You see, Roman had tried every trick up his sleeve to get Angelo to like him back, but there was so much that the man was hiding from him, like why he freaked out so much over that plane crash, and it was so difficult to get past his layers of sass and sarcasm that eventually Roman had given up and moved on. That’s when Ted showed up 

Roman had gone to a party without Angelo and Mari, because Angelo “didn’t like people, and definitely not drunk people.” And Mari was 16 and shouldn’t go to a college party, even thought she would beg to differ. Roman was hanging out with his friends from his theater major and some of those friends were also friends with Ted. Roman had never approached Ted before as he was extremely intimidating and HOT, but now they were all hanging out and Roman had soon realized that Ted Ice was a really cool guy. (Patton would be proud) 

Ted had short bleached blond hair, but very dark eyebrows. His eyes were a brilliant green, his cheekbones were magnificent, in Romans mind, and his lips were small, but very kissable. Ted also had an eyebrow piercing in his left brow and much like Virgil he almost always wore black. But Ted’s style was more sophisticated than Virgil’s, as he always wore dress shirts and waistcoats, instead of Virgil’s t-shirts and hoodies. Ted was totally Roman’s usual type and it wasn’t long into their last semester that the two started dating. 

Ted had joined the gang immediately, and everyone loved him... well maybe Virgil was a little jealous, because he had messed it up with Roman, but Roman seemed happy with Ted, so there was nothing he could do about it. 

Mari had told Virgil, back in January that Roman was gay, but Virgil still didn’t believe all the flirty remarks and bad pick-up lines were serious, so he just answered them sarcastically. Now he had seen Roman flirt with Ted, he regretted that decision. 

Than again, Ted was a very open and honest man whereas Virgil hadn’t even told Roman his real name yet. And now it had taken too long and it would be awkward to tell him. Like how was Virgil supposed to do that. 

“Hey, you’ve been calling me by my second name since the day we met, my actual name is Virgil Angelo Sanders Davide. I was the survivor of the plane crash and Logan and Patton are my uncles”

Virgil was sure Roman would hate him if he told him that now, after being friends for months. He was actually surprised that Mari hadn’t told Roman. Mari had been trying so hard to make her (and Patton’s) ship sail, but it didn’t work out and everyone accepted that... 

Well maybe Patton didn’t. “Prinxiety” was perfect and “Price” wasn’t, at least according to him, but he had only seen Ted once and he doesn’t want to judge people after only seeing them once. After all it was clear that the whole group Mari, Virgil, Roman and Ted were very close together. Ted was just a little difficult to read for Patton, but then again, Virgil would be too if they didn’t know each other that well. 

Virgil, Patton and Logan had become very close, but it was difficult for the lather two to actually call Virgil “Angelo” when there were others around. So Virgil only came around the store when he knew it wasn’t busy at the store, or when he gave another creative writing class, for which he now took his anxiety medicine. He didn’t want to have another panic attack after all. Virgil did come around the Sanders’ house for their weekly movie nights and he was glad that he could completely be himself there.

He could also be himself around Mari. And while hanging out with her he could whine about how he screwed things up with Roman. She would totally agree with him on that, which was a relief in comparison with Patton and Logan who would argue that he didn’t screw it up, or that Roman just hadn’t realized how much he loved Virgil. Mari was honest with Virgil and that was exactly what he needed. Someone who wasn’t afraid to tell the boy with an anxiety disorder that he had fucked up. Mari was really disappointed in Virgil for letting Roman go and had even told him that if she was straight, she would have probably hit on Roman herself. That comment lifted the mood again and Virgil was very glad with those moments where it was just Mari and him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think about Ted?   
> Please don’t be to mad at him, just because I thought Virgil and Roman weren’t ready to be together yet!


	19. AM or PM?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Virgil and Ted bonding time, because they are still friends even if Virgil is a little jealous.

Roman was really busy. He had both his end of the year performance from college and the performance of The Wiz from his old theatre group back in Orlando to rehearse for. So he was barely available to hang out. He did however spend every night he was at college with Ted just hanging out in Ted’s dorm room. When Roman was at his parents house in Orlando, which had become every weekend now, he would have very long phone conversations with him. Those conversations helped Roman a lot, Ted always seemed to know what to say to him. 

After one particular rehearsal Roman was very desperate. The show was in a week and he had fallen while doing his big Wiz speech, yeah Roman was the wizard pretty cool right?! But anyway, he had fallen and not only had he lightly sprained his ankle, he had also taken a piece of the decor with him, which meant they had to go fix it, but they barely had time to do that. And tech week was already stressful enough! Especially for an amateur group who couldn’t actually rehearse every day of tech week! Roman couldn’t stop whining and complaining about his one mistake, but luckily Ted had managed to calm him down simply by telling him to suck it up buttercup, because a lot of college friends were coming for opening night and he better not make a fool of himself. 

That might have sounded a bit harsh, but it was the truth and Roman needed to not feel sorry for himself if he wanted to put up a great performance. And of course Ted showered Roman in praises afterwards. Telling him what a good actor he was and how he was sure Roman wasn’t going to mess it up on stage. It would be the first time Ted was going to see an actual performance of Roman, other than a rehearsal, so both man were nervous and excited at the same time. 

Luckily they were able to calm each other down tremendously, by just talking to each other. Ted knew exactly what Roman needed to hear at all times and Roman knew the same from Ted. Everyone could see what a great couple they were and even Virgil had to admit that Roman was probably better of with Ted than with him. Especially during something as stressful as tech week. Virgil was sure that if he was in something like that, he would probably have had at least 3 panic attacks by now. Which was why he and Roman hadn’t talked with each other in about two weeks, as Virgil kept freaking Roman out by saying everything that could go wrong. After all everything was possible and Virgil knew that all too well.

Virgil and Roman were going to hang out after tech week though, just the two of them catching up, after both being busy. Virgil had actually started writing a real book and wanted Roman’s opinion on it, since Roman was really creative. Of course Roman had agreed to help, but now was not the time and Virgil understood that.

During one of his classes Virgil received a text from Ted asking him to hang out sometime that week. Which was a little weird, because even though they were all friends, Ted never hung out with Virgil or Mari without Roman being there. Virgil understood it though. Ted had been dragged into a group of friends that had already formed while he only knew one of them. Of course he wasn’t just going to hang out with the others, without the one person he actually knew being there. Thereby Ted also had friends outside of their weird little group, with whom he could hang out. This caused a nervousness to boil in Virgil’s stomach. What had changed? Why did he suddenly want to meet up with just Virgil? Was there something important he couldn’t tell Roman? And if so, why didn’t he talk about that with their theatre friends?

Virgil thought it was rude to ask Ted why he wanted to hang out over text, so he wrote back:

 

Ted: Hey Anx, wanna hang out sometime? 

“Anx”: yeah sure, when?

Ted: Soon as possible. You have class? 

“Anx”: uhm yeah... till 3

Ted: AM or PM?  
Ted: jk   
Ted: Can you be at the theatre department at 4?  
Ted: PM before you ask. 

“Anx”: yeah. just at the blocks by the front door? 

Ted: Great, yeah. See you there ;-)

 

The easiness of the conversation helped calm Virgil down a little bit. At least it wasn’t a life threatening situation or something like that. Still it was odd to say the least. Well he would talk about it with Patton tonight as it was movie night and Patton always seemed to know how to deal with people acting... unusual. 

When Virgil got to the big and colorful wooden blocks in front of the theater department at 4:10 PM, Ted was already there drinking a cafeteria coffee. Virgil couldn’t believe anyone could actually manage to drink that stuff, but it didn’t seem to mind Ted that much... okay never mind his face scrunched up after taking another sip. 

“Hey Anx, wanna go to a place that actually sells coffee?” Ted asked almost whining. “This stuff’sss G to the R to the OSS!” 

“Uhm sure... just a quick question before we go though...” Virgil had to aks it now or it would drive him made the entire time he ‘hung out’ with Ted. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why did you want to hang out with me? I’m mean you never really hang out with Mari or me without Roman so I thought...” 

“Don’t be ridiculous Anx, that’s exactly why I texted you today! I want to hang out with you guys more! Sometimes I just get so caught up in school and... Roman, that I forget to think about my other friends! And before you ask yes, I think we are friends. We just barely see each other because of the lack of classes we have together. So I want to make an effort to get to know you better.”

If there was one thing both men were good at, it was rambling. That was for sure. 

Virgil and Ted went to a local cafe where they talked about classes, Virgil’s writing and Roman’s upcoming performance. They were definitely not finished talking yet, when Virgil had to leave at 5:30 PM to get to the Sanders’ for movie night, so they decided to hang out next week at the same time. Virgil definitely hadn’t expected it to go that well. But Virgil never expects something to go well so...


	20. Panic! At the Theatre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone almost has a panic attack in the theatre. Who will it be? And why?

Virgil and Mari had both gotten closer to Ted, while Roman was in Orlando, so Ted had offered to give them a lift so they could see Roman perform on opening night. The other people of the theatre department all traveled via bus, but Ted had said he didn’t mind driving as he knew long bus drives made Anx uneasy. 

And so they left early in the afternoon with Ted behind the wheel, Virgil in de passengers seat and Mari in the back to go and see Roman... Who was totally freaking out right now. 

Anyone who has been in a theatre performance knows how stressful opening night can be. Roman was still limping a little from his fall earlier that week, the girl who played Dorothy had the wrong makeup applied to her and now looked so orange she could be an Oompa Loompa from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and at least 3 probs were missing, including Toto, Dorothy’s dog. 

The Wiz definitely wasn’t the biggest part Roman had ever played, but with his experience working with the group he had worked himself up to being assistant director and the extra responsibility quickly added to his already rising stress levels. 

Roman felt totally out of it by the time the first people were taking their seats. Still he didn’t understand why? Everything that was fixable was fixed, all probs were found, he was still limping but that wasn’t really to important. Everyone seemed happy and excited for the show. So why wasn’t he. Sure it was kind of disappointing that his parents couldn’t make it even though they had seen every previous show he had been in at opening night, but they were coming tomorrow and he still had people in the audience that came especially for him. A lot of college friends would be there! And most importantly Ted would be there! Ted would finally be able to watch him preform! But Angelo and Mari couldn’t make it, because they had no money for the bus trip to Orlando and Angelo had said something about not liking public transport anyway. But Ted was there! He was finally going to see his boyfriend again and be able to hold him close. He really needed that right now. Somebody to really hold close to his own body. To feel there presence there next to him. 

Since Roman had to stay backstage as the first audience members were already waiting for the show to begin and couldn’t run out to get a pre show hug from Ted he decided to call him. 

Ted had his phone on vibrate and was happily chatting to his theatre buddies, so he didn’t hear or feel his phone buzzing in the pocket of his jacket. When Ted wasn’t picking up Roman started to realize just how much he needed someone to talk to right now, that wasn’t involved with the wizard of oz. that’s when he made the decision to call someone he hadn’t spoken with in a while. 

Upon arrival Virgil and Mari were quickly ditched by Ted, who had to talk to his other friends about the trip there and about his boyfriend who would be performing tonight. His gushing over Roman was quite endearing, but not something Virgil could bare to listen to, so Mari and him hadn’t gone after him to join the theatre students. They were sitting in a quiet spot in the foyer to not stress Virgil out to much. If there were too many people around Virgil would always get anxious that one of them would know who he was and would pull all the attention towards him. A feelings that had stuck with him after all the media attention surrounding him and the crash.

When they were about to walk to their seats, Virgil’s phone rang. Both Mari and Virgil were startled by the sudden noice, as Virgil’s phone never rang. Everyone knew Virgil didn’t like phone calls so when he did get them it was either an emergency or his grandparents who thought he just had to get over it and pick up the darn phone. The startled looks on their faces transformed into confusion as they say who was calling him. 

“Sup Princey” Virgil answered the call. 

“Hey Anx, you got a minute to talk?” Roman sounded a little shaky and nervous

“Uhm.. sure, but I... no wait maybe that’s not a good idea. Isn’t your show about to start? I would just make you more nervous than you already are and...” 

“Anx I don’t think that is possible right now.” That sentence set of the alarm bells in Virgil’s head.

“Roman, you alright?”

“Ugh this is going to sound stupid..” Virgil kept quite to wait for an explanation, but it never came. 

“Roman? You still there?” He asked worryingly. 

“Yeah... damn my shoulders feel stiff.” 

“Roman, how anxious are you for this performance?” Virgil knew he had to be careful with asking these questions, but with the slight quiver in Roman’s voice and the stiff shoulders he mentioned, that would suggest that Roman is unknowingly keeping his shoulders tensed up, caused Virgil to ask it anyway. 

“More anxious than I’ve ever been for one” Roman admitted after a while. “And it starts in a few minutes and I don’t know what to do.” 

“Roman, can you find a blanket or a heavy jacket backstage? One that you would be able to lay over your shoulders? It might take the tension away a bit.” 

Virgil had to try and ground Roman over the phone, before the man would get his first panic attack just before a performance where half of his class, including his boyfriend traveled to Orlando for. Wait why didn’t he call his boyfriend? Virgil looked around the foyer while Roman was looking for something to lay over his shoulders. He saw Ted talking to his friends, holding his jacket over his arm and realized that Ted probably had been Roman’s first call, but that it had been impossible for him to hear is phone. Damn that little spark of hope that Virgil would be the first Roman thought of in a crisis situation quickly disappeared.

“I found a heavy dress that can function as a blanket, thanks for the tip Anx, I’ll think I’ll hang up now.”

No, no, no! Roman couldn’t hang up now! Virgil knew the blanket, or dress, alone wasn’t enough to ground Roman completely and going on stage with a lingering panic attack was definitely not a good idea. 

“Wait, Roman I have no idea what it looks like backstage a show could you maybe tell me 5 things you can see right now?” 

“Uh... Sure no problem! I can see the make up mirror with those big lightbulbs, Liza who plays the scarecrow, some costumes ready for quick changes, lots of makeup and hair products and some scripts.”

“Wow that sounds real messy haha.” Virgil tried to keep his voice neutral and unassuming. “What about textures? Can you tell me 4 things you can feel right now?”

“Well, I can feel that dress you told me to throw over my shoulders, the plastic chair I’m sitting on, the carpet floor under my boots and the green jacket I’m wearing.” 

“Wow, sounds like a lot of different textures back there. Speaking of sounds, can you maybe tell me... let’s say 3 things you can hear right now?” 

“There’s lots of people talking backstage, so I can hear them, I also think I can hear the people, who are waiting for the show to start, talking and I can hear Nick softly practicing his solo.” 

Virgil was glad to hear Roman slowly calming down, but he knew they weren’t there yet. Meanwhile Mari was looking at him confused but intrigued, she could swear she remembered Virgil bragging about being backstage at one of the shows his father was in when he was younger, so he should know what it looked like back there. Virgil’s father had been a guitarist and had played for many amateur and professional musical productions. One time he had taken Virgil with him and the boy didn’t stop bragging about it for weeks. Okay maybe it was like on time, but everyone could guess what a backstage area looked like right?

Virgil continued asking Roman questions about his current location. “And what does it smell like there? ... sorry I know I’m asking a lot of questions but I’m a writer, which is why I would like to have a very detailed description of the room.” 

“Well I could describe it more detailed if you want me to?”

“No need, just tell me 2 things you can smell right now.” 

“Lots of hairspray and the fries we ate earlier” 

“Okay Roman, I have one last question for you and then you can continue with preparing for the show, okay?” 

“Mmhm”

“Can you tell me one thing you can taste right now?”

“How does that help you figure out what the room looks like?” Roman asked very confused. 

Okay maybe this last step didn’t really work with Virgil’s excuse to get Roman to ground himself, but he did really want Roman to continue the exercise. 

“It helps me to determine what you as a figurative character would be doing in the room you just described” That answer almost came natural to Virgil, maybe it was something Logan had sad when grounding him and helping calm down back in the hospital. It was a pretty dumb excuse when he thought about it, but Roman seemed convinced. 

“I can taste... the mint candy I ate after we had had dinner.”

“I can see it all in front of me. Thank you Roman.”

“Sure thing Anx, oh but I need to hang up now, the show is about to start!” 

“Okay, speak to you later!”

“Oh and Angelo... thanks I don’t know what you did, but I feel better now” 

“It’s what friends do... don’t worry about it, Romano.”

“Ugh, you serious?”

“What? You called me Angelo again!” 

Both men laughed and said goodbye before hanging up. Roman took his place backstage and Virgil and Mari rushed to their seats at the back of the room, because they had only bought them yesterday evening when Ted told them he could drive them there.


	21. Two stranded kittens outside a theatre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil explaines something to Mari, while they have time to spare.

The performance went great! A weight fell of his shoulders when he actually got to play and his heart soared when he saw Ted sitting on the second row. All of Roman’s initial worries disappeared. During the applause in which the lighting in the room turned on so people could give the players flowers and other thing, Roman even though he could see Angelo and Mari in the back, but that must have been his imagination. They couldn’t be here right? Still the thought of them being there made Roman really happy, which shocked him a little. Had he been so happy when he knew Ted was going to be there? Who is he kidding of course he was! He had been ecstatic! ...right?

As soon as roman left the dressing room he was swarmed by his fellow students who wanted to congratulate him on his performance. Ted asked Roman if he wanted to go back to college as the next show would be next week, because some people weren’t allowed to perform on Sundays. They would make the three hour drive, wait for the others to arrive with the bus and then they would all go out celebrating, the older students buying drinks for the younger ones.

After his almost panic attack earlier and the performance itself Roman was exhausted, but it didn’t take Ted long to get Roman to agree. He could always sleep in the car right? And before they know it most of the theatre students are on the last bus towards college while Ted is driving Roman and him, back to the dorms. 

That leaves two little stranded kittens outside of the theatre in the rain. Virgil and Mari hadn’t been able to talk to Roman at all and now they heard from some other people that their lift home had left without them. They could only guess Ted was right when he said he forgot about his other friends as soon as Roman was there... and now they were in trouble. They definitely didn’t have the money to get a hotel room, especially not in Orlando and there was no way of getting home through public transport. 

“What if...”

“Mari, no.”

“You didn’t even hear my plan” 

“Does it involve one of us getting hurt so we can stay in the hospital?”

“Yes...”

“Then no. Hospitals are probably more expensive than getting a hotel room!” 

“But if it was me, my mom would probably pay for it!”

“And how would we explain you getting injured in ORLANDO, when you were supposed to be at my house?!”

“Yeah, you’re right... that would be tricky... not impossible though.” Mari flashed a cheeky smile towards Virgil, but he didn’t laugh back. “Sorry I’ll stop.” 

They were silent for a while. Virgil had already tried to call Ted three times, but they had left an hour ago, so he doubted they were coming back. 

It was 11 PM and the last remaining lights went out in the theatre. Virgil was starting to get anxious, but he couldn’t show that to Mari, who came with one crazy idea after the other to try and get them home. Eventually she asked Virgil a question that she had wanted to ask since his phone call with Roman. 

“Why did you say to Roman that you had never seen the backstage area of a show?” The question was sudden, but it helped break the awkward silence that had fallen over them. 

“I could hear he was tensing up... so I tried calming him down over the phone.” 

“By asking him what his surroundings look like? How does that work?” Mari asked confused. 

“You know Roman, he’s very proud. Probably too proud to even admit to himself that he might be starting to panic about something to much.” Mari laughed at that, because, yeah that sounded like Roman. “If I had told him I wanted him to do a grounding exercise usually done by people having anxiety, he probably wouldn’t have done it. So I had to be smart about it and pretend he was doing it for me and not for himself.” 

“So that thing about you, being a writer, needing a lot of weird details to form a room to be able to picture it in your head.”

“Total bullshit, but hey, whatever works right?”

“You sneaky little... monster!” Virgil raised an eyebrow at that but didn’t comment.

“What about that comment that you needed to know what the other could taste to imagine the reason why that person was in that particular room?” Mari asked absently looking at the road in front of them. ”You told Roman that so convincingly that I really thought you needed to know things like that for writing.” 

“I’m not sure where that came from to be honest... I think it must be something Logan said to me back in the hospital when he was coaxing me into doing the same exercise... WAIT LOGAN!” Virgil got an idea. He couldn’t believe he didn’t think of this sooner. Now he just hoped that he wasn’t too late. 

Mari was once again confused by her childhood friend. He used to be loud all the time, but now she had got to know him as quiet and reserved. And then he almost freaking screams “Logan” when they have a talk about anxiety in front of a closed theatre in Orlando, in the rain. Wait does that mean?

“Is Logan in Orlando?!” Mari asked hopeful.

“Let’s hope he still is!” Virgil said pulling out his phone. Normally he would text Logan, but time was of the essence here and if Logan was already in his car he wouldn’t see the text till he was home. So Virgil called Logan’s number, praying his uncle would pick up. 

Roman was asleep in Ted’s car. He had fallen asleep the moment they started driving and hadn’t heard Ted’s phone ringing 3 times already. Ted had, but he was driving and why would he pick up, if he already knew who was calling and why. 

Sure Anx and Mari had been good company on they way there, but he had never told them he was going to drive them back. Right now he just wanted to be with his boyfriend, even if said boyfriend would sleep the whole drive home. Ted would apologize to Anx and Mari tomorrow saying how he had totally forgotten about them when he saw Roman again. After that he would probably propose for the four of them to hang out, so he could make it up to them. Not that he did anything wrong of course! But it was probably for the better to keep those to as friends. Roman was very attached to them after all. And maybe they could be useful...


	22. Like how taco cat is taco cat backwards?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virgil and Mari get a ride home.

Logan had had a lovely day at the space convention. He had been particularly interested in astronomy and had gone to several courses surrounding that subject. Patton had tagged along. He wasn’t really interested in it, but seeing his husband’s face light up when he explained something Patton didn’t understand was worth the drive to Orlando and the walking around at the convention center. Patton also got to make a ton of space puns so he definitely didn’t get bored. 

After the convention, the men went to have dinner together and Patton got Logan to go to the cinema with him as well. It had been a long day and they would have stayed over in a hotel if they didn’t have to do the inventory of the store tomorrow. They were almost out of the city when Logan got a phone call from Virgil.

“This is unusual.” Logan said upon seeing the caller ID. Patton was driving the first 1,5 hours and he would drive the second 1,5 hours. But if he was the one driving he would have asked Patton to look at his phone for him. 

“Any call at this hour is unusual” Patton mused keeping his eyes on the road. “You usually don’t get a call at 11 PM.”

“Especially not from Virgil...” Logan said before answering the call.”  
Patton looked worried after hearing that, but kept quiet 

“Logan Sanders”

“Heeeeyyy Logan, how’s Orlando?”

“The day has been satisfactory, but I believe you to have an ulterior motive for calling me this time of day”

“Technically it’s night, but anyway. I kinda need you to pick Mari and me up.”

“Virgil that’s going to be difficult we’re just exiting Orlando right now” 

“You’re on the phone while driving! That’s dangerous, didn’t think you would do something like that!”

“Virgil, Patton is driving” 

“Anyway can you turn around and pick us up?” 

“What do you mean turn around? We’re still near Orlando Virgil. It will take us three hours before we could pick you up from anywhere.”

“Just a few minutes to pick us up from a small theatre in Orlando.”

“Patton, take the next turn off the highway... yes I know that leads back to the city” Logan sighs “where exactly are you Virgil?”

15 minutes later Virgil and Mari are getting onto the backseat of Logan’s car. Patton still behind the wheel and both men looking disappointed at the two young adults in the back, before Patton drove away. 

Patton was the first to speak up “Virgil Angelo Sanders Davide, Belle-“

“Here name is Marinka, Patton.” Logan added. The anger was clear in his voice, and Virgil knew that was the reason he mainly kept quiet and let Patton lead the conversation. As Logan never liked to show his emotions.

“But I prefer Mari!” Mari quickly added, before she would be called Marinka the whole drive home.

“Virgil Angelo Sanders Davide, Marinka Wade, what were you two doing in Orlando at 11 pm, without a way to get back home?” Everyone in the car looked shocked toward Patton. 

“Wait... you knew my name the whole time?!” Mari exclaimed surprised.

“That is not an answer to my question, Marinka” 

“We went to see Roman’s theatre group’s performance of The Wiz” Virgil answered, because Mari was still to confused to say anything. 

“And how did you two get here. And did your parents give you permission to be here Marinka?” 

“Mari’s parents think she is staying with me, which technically isn’t a lie, because she is with me” 

“Withholding important information, like the location at which one is staying and wether or not that location provides one with a roof over their head, is known as a lie of omission. Therefore you were in fact lying about something Virgil.” Logan decided to add to the conversation.

“And lying is bad!” Patton said sternly. 

It was easy to believe Patton to actually be Mari and Virgil’s father at the moment and both young adults felt horrible at the moment.

“At least we had a lift” Mari decided to defend them. “We didn’t have to hitchhike.” 

“And who was that lift? And why didn’t they drive you back?” Patton was going full dad mode.

“It was Ted, he drove us here... but then he left with just Roman and we were only told once the last bus had left.” Virgil answered. “Don’t know why he couldn’t drive us back though... guess he forgot about us as soon as he saw Roman.” 

“And you wouldn’t?” 

“Mari! How can you say something like that!” Virgil was shocked by his best friend’s directness. “Thereby Roman hasn’t even seen us there” 

“Kids. I do not approve of your actions, but since you expected to have a ride back, I will let this one drive by.” 

After that comment the atmosphere in the car seemed to swift. Soon they were playing stupid car games like car bingo or forming words out of license plates. Not that there were that many cars driving on the road at this time of day. 

When Patton and Logan switched places and Patton made yet another pun followed by a groan from Logan Mari decided to ask Logan a question.

“Logan, don’t you like Patton’s jokes? You guys seem to really like each other, but that seems to disappear with every joke he makes.”

Both men laughed fondly at her comment. 

“No I do not hate Patton’s jokes, but after a day like today, in which he gets way to many opportunities to make them, his puns can be insufferable.” He answered her. “And don’t get me wrong. I definitely don’t hate using the structure of words to make jokes or to create another meaning of the word.” 

“How so?” Mari asked curious for what Logan meant.

“Anagrams for example.”

“Is that how taco cat is taco cat backwards?” She asked.

Virgil laughed at that. “Jeez what do they teach you at that school of yours?” He wheezed “anagrams are words or small sentences created from other words. Like how you can make ‘silent’ from the word ‘listen’” 

“Well I’m sorry that I don’t do advanced english, like you do at college!”

“I study literature!”

“What’s the difference?!” 

Everyone in the car was laughing now and the ride home wasn’t as long as anyone had thought it would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t you just love a good anagram ;-P


	23. Everyone gets home safe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some making out and some doubt in this chapter, but at least everyone is home again.

Back at Ted’s dorm, Roman and Ted decided to not go out anymore that night, so Ted tossed Roman his phone so he could call the others to tell them they weren’t coming. 

“Why did Angelo call you 3 times tonight?” 

“Mhm? Oh he must have wanted to know if they could drive back with us so they didn’t have to pay for the bus.”

“Wait. He was in Orlando?”

“Yeah with Mari, I drove them there because they only had enough money for a one way ticket.”

“Why? What were they doing there?” This was new information for Roman. Why hadn’t Angelo said anything when they were on the phone?

“Watching your performance of course! Darling you were amazing last night. You totally didn’t mess anything up, told you, you could trust me when I said you wouldn’t.” 

“Yeah, you did...” Roman had a lot to progress right now. Angelo and Mari had come all the way to Orlando for his performance, probably wanted to surprise them with being there, and he hadn’t even seen them. Roman felt like a terrible friend at the moment, but also wondered why Ted hadn’t told him Mari and Angelo were there. 

“You were the best actor on the stage Ro Ro.” Ted said while he slowly and intimately started kissing Roman’s neck. “You’re pronunciation was perfect.” The kisses started to travel to Roman’s jaw. “Even that dance you were so scared about went phenomenal.” Roman knew that wasn’t true. He knew he had made a few mistakes in the dance and that his light limp must have been visible for the audience. But just when he was about to interject Ted finally kissed him on his mouth. The kiss was passionate and full of nothing but lust. It made Roman forget all his worries about that night and completely focus on Ted and his loving words. 

Roman loved it how Ted saw nothing but perfection in him. Loved it how he took all of Roman’s insecurities away. Loved it how he himself knew how to do the same for Ted. Loved it how perfect they were together. 

Ted ended up texting their friends that they wouldn’t go out anymore and texting an apology to Mari and Angelo in the group chat, after which the making out continued. It didn’t get any further than that as they both were exhausted. But they went to bed satisfied and feeling loved. 

Mari and Patton were both asleep in the car, while Logan was silently driving. He must have thought Virgil was asleep too, or he just didn’t want to wake anyone as he had been quiet for the last 15 minutes. Virgil didn’t mind. He was sitting fold in on himself with his feet on the backseat and his hood over his head hiding his face. Yes Virgil was tired, but he never let himself fall asleep in a moving vehicle anymore as he always wanted to be able to react fast in a potential dangerous situation. 

He got a text at the same time Mari did. So he decided to take out his phone and take a look. He knew it had to be from their group chat, which meant it was either Roman or Ted. 

 

Ted: hey guys, sorry we had already left when you called. Roman was asleep and I was driving so I couldn’t pick up the phone. 

Ted: thought you were taking the bus back as you said you had enough money for a one way ticket.

Ted: hope you got home okay! 

Angelo: managed to get a ride home. Anyway thanks for the ride there. 

 

Virgil didn’t get a text back, and Ted didn’t even seem to receive his text, which let Virgil to believe that Ted had turned his phone of. So far for being worried wether they had made it home or not...

For a long time Virgil had believed his slight distrust towards Ted had been out of jealousy for Ted dating Roman, but now he started to doubt that. He wasn’t going to talk about that with Logan though and Mari was asleep and would probably reason with him that Ted had just gone to bed or that his phone battery died. Before tonight Virgil had probably believed that, but now his anxiety was starting to kick in. And he so hoped he was wrong about Ted Ice.

An hour later Logan arrived at Virgil’s small apartment, where Virgil and Mari got out the car. Luckily Virgil had already set up the extra bed for the sleepover, because otherwise one of them would have ended up on the couch or the floor. They were both exhausted and immediately went to bed. 

When Mari checked her phone and saw the messages she smiled. 

“See I knew there was a reason Ted didn’t drive us home. We should have been more clear about wanting a lift back as well! I knew he wouldn’t just leave us there!” 

Virgil nodded. To tired to go against Mari’s enthusiastic reasoning. 

“Let’s just go to bed Mari, and let’s stay in bed till like 3 pm”

“Sounds good to me!”


	24. Just like your mom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To whoever still believes Ted is a good person, I present the following chapter.

The next Wednesday was the first time Virgil heard from Ted again. Other then some more apologies in the group chat. Ted wanted to hang out again and Virgil, against better judgment, agreed. He really wanted to believe that Ted was a nice person, he wanted to believe it for Roman, as it was Roman’s boyfriend. Virgil just couldn’t help but feel suspicious. Ted just seemed to always know the right thing to say, and people like that are dangerous. 

At the international school in Italy there had been a girl like that. She always got Virgil in trouble while she was the one who bullied him. She just knew exactly how to play the teachers there, how to manipulate them into doing exactly what she wanted them to do. Ann Marie was her name. She was overjoyed when finding out that Virgil had a mental disorder, loved to tease him and call him nothing but Anxiety, and soon the entire school had joined her.

But Ted wasn’t Ann Marie and Virgil shouldn’t distrust him because of his bad experiences with her. 

So Thursday afternoon at 16:10, because true Italians like Virgil... okay he is only half Italian.... but anyways true Italians are always at least ten minutes late, Virgil arrived at the entrance of the theatre department once again. They go to the same cafe again and just talk. They talk for about an hour before the topics to talk about seem to have dried up. That’s when Ted asked Virgil a question that would determine the rest of their friendship.

“Anx, you’re like a writer right?” Ted asked. “Just asking because Roman told me about this story you were writing and he just couldn’t shut up about it. I would have almost found it annoying if it wasn’t about you!” Ted said laughing and Virgil somehow got the idea that he still found it annoying even though it was about him.

“Yeah I guess I like to write now and then... why?”

“Oh Anx always able to see right through me” Ted laughed again, but the atmosphere had turned tense and Virgil was mentally preparing himself for something bad to happen. “I was wondering if you could write a scenario for me, for this one class. See I totally didn’t have time to write it and it’s due on Monday.”

Virgil didn’t know what how to feel about this. If it was just for fun he probably would have written something for Ted, but this was a college assignment! And it was not like Virgil didn’t have any schoolwork himself! 

“I don’t know Ted... I don’t think it’s a good idea if I do your schoolwork...” 

“Come on Anx just this one assignment. It’s nothing too big and if I would trust Roman, which I do, I’m sure you can do it.”

“No Ted. I really shouldn’t do that. I have some assignments of my own to make and I am not a scenario writer. I don’t know anything about theatre!”

“Listen Anx. I don’t have the time to actually make this assignment and I’m definitely not a good writer, but I know you are and knowledge of theatre doesn’t matter right now, otherwise I would have asked Roman to help me. So you are going to make this assignment for me!” The volume of Ted’s voice was still low, but very sharp and dangerous. So much so that Virgil instinctively leaned back in his seat a little more. 

“No I won’t. You can’t make me.” That was probably the worst answer Virgil could have given Ted. 

Ted held both his hands up in a mocked surrender as he stood up and started to walk away. 

“Shame you can’t do it Anx.. I thought you wanted to become a writer” Ted turned his back to him and Virgil started to relax in his chair again looking at the empty mug in front of him. “A writer... Just like your mom, right? Virgil Sanders Davide?” 

Virgil’s head turned back towards Ted so quickly it almost gave him a whiplash. 

“Now what would Roman think about it when the son of one of his childhood favorite writer was his best friend, who never even told him his real name not even after knowing each other for 5 months”

“Don’t you dare!” Virgil was standing too now. 

“I expect the scenario complete and well written in my email inbox by Sunday evening, Virgy... Or the entire school will know who you really are by Monday afternoon.” 

Virgil could do nothing but gasp for air as tears started to form in his eyes. He couldn’t go through this again. Everyone asking him about the crash, about his parents and his life. The media was harsh enough on him back then... and he was only 10 then! What if one of the students told the media? Would they all swarm him again? Would 9 years being forced to hide away in Italy be completely wasted, because some asshole decided to leak his name to the entire school?!

Ted had left Virgil to deal with his panic attack alone, but luckily for Virgil the bookstore wasn’t far away so he managed to walk there before completely breaking down. Upon arrival Patton quickly got Logan who took Virgil to the back of the store with him to calm down. Still Virgil never told him the reason for his panic attack. This was something he could fix on his own. He only had to write a scenario for a play in 3 days he could manage to do that. He didn’t want to think about how Ted got his full name or the leverage Ted had over him now. He just wanted to go to bed and that’s exactly what he did when he got home.


	25. Nothing is always something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is it possible to hate Ted even more?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Guys, I have to re write an essay for college myself, so this will be my last post in a while.
> 
> But don’t worry I’ll be back! and you can always annoy me on twitter @Shirleydocious  
> I’m even thinking of doing a prequel with Logan, Patton and Nikki!

That Sunday Virgil was exhausted. He had tried his best to write a decent 3 page scenario, for Ted while he was also writing his 3500 words long essay about different writing styles that he had to finish before Tuesday. He had taken his anxiety medication every day since Ted had told him he knew Virgil’s real identity, and he was starting to get used to the side effect, which was never a good sign, but Virgil really didn’t want a mental breakdown this weekend. He just wished he had started writing his essay earlier, so it would be easier to combine both assignments. 

He had just send his scenario to Ted, a scenario of which he knew it would no longer be his as soon as Ted handed it in with his own name on it. Virgil really wanted to go to bed now, but he decided to do something he hadn’t done in a long time, maybe it was the effect the medication had on him, but Virgil decided to grab his old guitar from the build in closet in his bedroom and started playing some chords, but the guitar was horribly out of tune after not being touched in ages. The rest of the night Virgil spend trying and eventually succeeding to tune his guitar and play some songs he seemed to have remembered through muscle memory. Before falling asleep. 

On Wednesday the whole gang was hanging out again. They were at the Pizza place Mari had taken Roman to when Virgil had a panic attack at the bookstore. Everyone was chatting with each other and eating pizza, but the atmosphere had somehow shifted and only two of the four knew why. And one of them was pretending nothing was wrong.

Ted got the best grade out of everyone in his class for his scenario and Roman couldn’t stop gushing about how good it was and how proud he was of Ted. So much so that Virgil started to understand why Ted thought it was annoying to hear Roman talk about Virgil’s writing. 

Mari noticed Virgil getting agitated and quickly switched the subject, to be about some maths test she had to make last week. She had never seen Virgil as the jealous type, until Ted had started dating Roman and thought that Ted being good at writing too, must have made Virgil even more jealous. 

When Roman miraculously managed to change the subject back towards Ted’s writing and told the group that it was better than that of his childhood hero Nikki Sanders, Virgil felt like big sharp peaces of glass were puncturing both his heart and brain. After the initial pain he felt nothing and as if on auto pilot he excused himself to go to the bathroom. 

Before Virgil could look away though Ted decided to kiss Roman to ‘thank’ him for the compliment. Mari didn’t miss the cheeky look Ted gave Virgil before getting lost in the kiss. Not long after that Mari decided to go to the bathroom as well, because all the kissing was too much PDA for her to handle right now and she was worried for her best friend who seemed to have lost the control over his crush. 

“You know, just because he’s a writer too and Roman likes his writing more than yours doesn’t mean you can get to sit and sulk in the bathroom okay?”  
Mari said after finding Virgil in the luckily gender neutral bathrooms. Not that she would have minded going into the male bathroom for Virgil, she really couldn’t care less. 

“He thought it was better than mom’s”

“I’m sure he just said that to compliment Ted.” She looked down at her disheveled friend who was sitting in a corner. “Seriously though, I thought you had this jealousy thing under control?”

“I’m not jealous.”

“Oh yeah? Then why did you leave looking like a lost zombie?”

“I always look like a zombie Mari, it’s my astatic”

“Virge...” This was the first time Mari had seen him almost jump and cringe after hearing his actual name. “What’s wrong?” 

“It’s nothing”

“Nothing is always something Anx”

“Just a little agitated after the amount of schoolwork I had to make this weekend. Should probably learn how to plan these thing better.”

“And that’s it?”

“Yup” he popped the p When saying it, indicating this would be the last he had to say over this topic. 

Virgil was glad that conversation was over. He didn’t want to involve Mari in this as she still thought Ted was a great guy and Roman did too of course. Both of them deserved to be happy and to have a tight group of friends. Ted having leverage over Virgil should not be their problem. Virgil could act like nothing was wrong, just like Ted was doing right now. Just a few small lies of omission can’t be that bad right?

Well they weren’t until he got more schoolwork send to him from Ted. While he also had to write his own final essay for his course. Now he really wished he would have planned things better. He also wished he had told Mari back then, as Ted had clearly worked extra hard to become closer to her too, cutting off Virgil’s allies, so he had no choice but to focus on the assignments. Every time Virgil wanted to hang out with either Roman or Mari, Ted was already with them and Virgil could come if he wanted to, but he really didn’t. 

He did however get sick of sitting in his apartment so he went to the bookstore to continue writing there. Patton was behind the register and of course he gave Virgil permission to work there. Logan would have probably been more difficult to convince, but he was at the back.

Virgil had been writing his own essay for about an hour before Logan decided to walk through the store. He looked at the mess of papers on the table and the stressed boy typing away at his laptop. Ahh... college stress. He was about to leave Virgil alone with his work when his eyes fell on one of the papers on the table, that didn’t look like the others, so he picked it up and started reading it. 

“You know Angelo, I would recommend you to work in a library, preferably that of your own college, since you can work more at peace there, and those locations are specifically designed for academic study. However since you are here, I couldn’t help but notice that you seem to have an assignment from the theatre department as well as your own assignment from the literary department. Has Ted or Roman perhaps displaced it during a joined study session?”

“Mhm? ... oh... yeah I guess so. Hadn’t even noticed it being there.” Virgil lied, to get Logan of his back. 

“You should probably give it back to them as soon as possible, unless you are planning on making it for them. The assignment says it’s due tomorrow evening.” 

Shit, shit, shit! That meant that Ted wants it done by today. Luckily Virgil’s medication helped him to stay calm enough, that Logan didn’t suspect a thing. Patton probably would have, but he was helping some costumers. 

“You’re right Logan. I’ll go bring it to them right now.” Virgil was very glad adults often didn’t realize that most assignments were given online through the student website, where they could be read, downloaded and/or printed. Very rarely did a student receive an assignment on paper anymore. 

He rushed out of the store and back to his apartment. He had no time to come up and write out a whole new scenario, so he decided to grab one of the stories from his creative writing classes and work from there. It was 11 PM when he send the assignment to Ted. But that didn’t mean Virgil could go to bed yet as his own essay was still waiting for him to be completed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to leave you with this, but I’ll be back soon enough. And trust me the ending of this fic will be like a fairytale <3


	26. I sure was studying something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan and Patton being cute together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was taking a break from schoolwork and got the idea to write a little Logicality moment. Since I don’t write those enough xD

Logan and Patton had watched Virgil run out of the store, both men were very confused at the young man’s sudden reaction.

“What did you say to him?” Patton said. The tone of his voice showing that he definitely wasn’t angry, like one would expect someone to be with a question like that. He just sounded very confused, but he also knew Logan could sometimes say the wrong things to people. 

“I assumed he could just send the person a text with the assignment as attachment...” logan remarked, mainly to himself. 

“What?”

“I noticed a theatre assignment between the papers on the table and assumed Roman or Ted must of misplaced it during a study session.” 

“Ahh study sessions... that brings me back” Patton said creeping up to Logan and wrapping his arms around the smaller man’s waist and pressing a kiss on the back of his neck. “Remember how you used to wear plateau sneakers so you would be taller than me, Lo?” 

Logan huffed. “That’s not why I was wearing them.” 

“Sure. Of course not, dear.” Patton laughed in Logan’s hair. 

“They were really stylish back then.” Logan tried to convince himself more than Patton 

“It was the 90’s Lo, nothing was really stylish” both men were laughing now. Virgil running out of the store already forgotten. He didn’t look to panicked, so everything was probably okay, or at least okay enough that he could handle it alone. 

“No, but do you remember our study sessions back at college, Lo?”

“Those weren’t really about studying were they, Pat?” 

“I wouldn’t say that, Lo... I sure was studying something.” Logan blushed at his husband’s sneaky remark, before pushing himself out of Patton’s embrace. 

Patton looked a little disappointed, but he did know that they were in a public place and that Logan was still a little scared of publicly showing his affection to Patton. Partly because of his reputation as serious and not affected by emotions and partly because of that one time they got beat up for walking hand in hand on campus. He said it didn’t affect him, but Patton knew that wasn’t true. It had taken a lot of courage from Logan to show his love for Patton in public and when he was attacked for doing just that... let’s just say that it was the time Logan had learned a lot of the exercises he also used on Virgil when he had a panic attack and Logan was facing it alone, he had to try and calm himself down with his knowledge of panic attacks. He didn’t want to bother anyone with his own unstable emotions. Emotions really were the bane of his existence. 

Luckily that was a long time ago and Patton really had helped Logan deal with emotions. Logan hadn’t had a panic attack since he graduated college and he wasn’t scared anymore to hug Patton in public. 

So that was what he did when he saw Patton’s disappointed look after he pushed Patton away. 

“Love you, Pat.”

“Love you too, Lo.” 

They stood like that for a few more seconds before Logan managed to free himself again. 

“As much as I would like to stand like this a little longer. I do believe we both have a job to do and should go back to work.” He said, his blush still faintly on his cheeks. 

“Maybe we could close the shop a little earlier than normal? Go out have some food that kinda stuff.” Patton tried to compromise for having to let logan go. 

“Patton... financially-“

“You said we were doing better financially since Virgil started his classes and we decided to do more activities for kids too!”

“Yes Patton, we are doing better, but that doesn’t mean we can close up early and go on a spending spree... We need to safe up the money in case things cave in again and-“ 

“I don’t want to hear it Lo... I know I have to face the facts that things aren’t ideal right now... but I also just want to do something fun with you! And before you ask, the space convention didn’t count. When was the last time we actually went on a date?” 

“The last time you actually called it a date was when we were still in college, but our last romantic outing was...” Logan was ashamed of himself that he actually had to think about it for quite a long time, then he was even more embarrassed when he realized how long it was since they had been on an actual ‘date’. “Last December... the day after Christmas, because going out during Christmas itself would have been too expensive...”

After saying that Logan walked to the back leaving behind a confused Patton. Patton had not wanted to upset his husband and felt really guilty, but he couldn’t go after him right now, because some costumers walked in and he had to pay attention to them. 

Logan had walked away without a word. They had focused on finances for so long that Logan had completely forgotten to show his husband the love he deserved and needed. 

Logan had learned early in their relationships that Patton was very dependent on both physical and emotional showings of affection and now Logan had been lacking in that department. Well he had been lacking in the emotional department his entire life, but that was besides the point. He had to make it up to Patton, and fast.


	27. “Have a nice date!” *runs away*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan suprises Patton with the help of an old friend.

That afternoon, while Virgil was stressing over an assignment that wasn’t even his, Logan was making some arrangements for his first romantic outing with Patton in months. He couldn’t believe how he must have neglected Patton on the emotional front since December last year. 

He had immediately called their friend from college, Thomas, and asked him if he was in town. Luckily he was and could pick up some groceries for Logan. The tricky part was getting Logan said groceries without Patton seeing them. 

Eventually Logan managed to get out of the store by pretending to have a headache. Normally when that happened he would make a small stroll through the nearby park and come back, but since it was 20 minutes before the shop would close, Patton had offered to do the close up so Logan could go home already. 

Patton still felt guilty for being so needy earlier. He had just wanted to show Logan how much he loved him and how badly he wanted to do something fun together, just the 2 of them. The store had been struggling for so long now, that they hardly did anything fun anymore... Patton definitely hadn’t expected Logan to just walk away from him with slumped shoulders as soon as he asked him how long ago it was that they went out together. He felt like he was the reason Logan had a headache now, and he couldn’t stand feeling like that. He always wants everyone to be happy and when someone is not he takes it upon himself to make them happy! But now he had made Logan, his Logan, unhappy, because he had to be needy. 

Patton was almost crying when he closed up the shop. He just wanted to go home now, to make Logan happy again und probably cuddle together, but he was stopped by Thomas. 

“Hey Pat, haven’t seen you guys in a while. How’ve you guys been?” 

“Great!” Patton said with big smile on his face. Thomas knew the smile was fake. He knew Patton was good at hiding negative emotions, but then again he also knew what Logan had told him earlier. 

“Just closing up I see. Care to join me in a short walk through the park at this lovely spring eve?” Patton had to say yes for the plan to work. Luckily Patton wasn’t someone to let his friends down.

No, no, no! Patton thought. He had to get to Logan! But he hadn’t seen Thomas in sooo looong. “Sure thing, kiddo” he said before he could think about it more clearly. 

“Pat, I’m older than you.” Thomas laughed. He was used to Patton calling everyone kiddo, but it was starting to get a bit weird now that they were both adults, living the scary adult life, which included doing taxes and cooking brrr. 

Their walk towards the park was filled with a little small talk, but nothing substantial was said. When they arrived at the park, Thomas had done his job so he ducked out and ran away only yelling 

“Have a nice date!” 

Back at Patton, to give him a heads up about the situation. 

When Patton turned around Logan was standing in front of him. 

“Patton... I’m terribly sorry for neglecting your emotional needs.” Was the first thing Logan told his husband as soon as Patton was looking at him. More apologies would follow that night, coming from both sides (ayy ‘sides’ pun) 

Logan had arranged a picnic near the lake, with a lot of cute duckies around. He had asked Thomas for groceries that consisted of some reasonably healthy sandwiches some not really healthy chocolate chip cookies and a definitely not healthy chocolate cake. 

This night was something both men hadn’t realized how much they needed it until it had happened and they were glad it did.


	28. Ponte Vecchio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who knew Italian bridges could uncover lies.

About a week later Ted got his grade back for ‘his’ scenario assignment. He got an A, of course. Ha he should have probably threatened Anx to write them for him sooner. This scenario was different from the others though. This scenario had to be turned into a short play. Anx wouldn’t be good at that, but he knew Roman was, so he gave his boyfriend the lead role. That was the main reason why Ted liked Roman so much, his creativity when it came to theatre and performing.

Roman loved working with Ted and he loved that he could act out a story Ted had written! Ted was such a good writer. Roman almost got chills while reading his latest scenario. But that was the problem. Roman couldn’t figure out if they were good chills or bad chills. He had the feeling he had heard or read this story before somewhere. 

When Roman got the scenario send to him by Ted, with the question if he could already think about how to turn it into a script, he decided to copy paste some sentences into google, but he got no results. This meant that it had to be written by Ted right? Still he couldn’t get himself to start writing out a script... even though he knew Ted would probably be mad at him if he had nothing by tomorrow. The second part of the assignment was a shared project and since they had chosen to perform Ted’s scenario, it was only fair that Roman got to rewrite it into a script. And now he just couldn’t do it. 

Roman didn’t really think about his next move. He just walked out of his dorm, got in his car and drove away. He only got back to his senses when he was standing in front of Logicality bookstore. What did his body, his intuition, his soul hope to find here? Roman had no idea, but there had to have been a reason for it to bring him here so he walked in. 

He was greeted by Patton who was sitting in his usual spot behind the register. What was new was that Logan was also in the store. It had been happening more often since Virgil came back into their lives, but this was the first time Roman saw the ever stoic man actually working in the front of the store and looking kind of pleased about it. 

After aimlessly walking through the store for a bit, not really sure what he’s looking for Roman decides to ask Logan for his opinion on Ted’s scenario. 

“Mister Sanders, can I ask you a question?” He asked uncomfortably. 

“Of course you can Roman. Oh and please call me Logan, mister Sanders sounds like some sort of high school teacher.” A small laugh escaped his lips. Logan had been a teacher while saving up money to start the bookstore. He had liked the job, but he never liked the attitude the students had towards young and inexperienced teachers, so he was glad he could quit after saving up enough money. 

“Logan, got it.” Roman was still just standing there a little awkwardly, wondering why Logan was looking at him like that, when he remembered he actually had to ask his question now. “I’m doing this assignment with my amazing boyfriend Ted and we’re turning his scenario in a play and now I have to turn his brilliant writing into a script.” Roman couldn’t help boasting a little about his boyfriend, that’s one of the things a boyfriend is for right?

“That was a statement Roman, not a question.” Logan was confused, why would Roman share something like that with him. They never really talked before and if the boy wanted some advice about love he should really talk to Patton, or maybe even Marinka, they would be more equipped to help him with something like that. 

“I was getting to the question, Microsoft nerd.” Logan raised an eyebrow at the nickname but let it slide, because there seemed to be a lot on Roman’s mind at the moment. “I was wondering if you could take a look at my boyfriend’s beautiful writing and tell me he didn’t copy someone else’s work.” 

“You think your boyfriend is committing plagiarism? That’s a serious accusation Roman. Because if that’s true, and you continue this assignment with him, it could have serious consequences for both of your academic careers.” 

“I know... and that’s why I need you to tell me I’m wrong.” Roman really didn’t want to be right about this, but somehow he already knew how the story was going to end when he read the first sentence and that could only be possible if he had seen the story somewhere else right? Or maybe he just knew his boyfriend so well that he knew what he was going to write! Yes that must have been it. 

While Roman was trying to convince himself that Ted didn’t lie about his assignment and really was a good writer and amazing boyfriend, Logan had been reading the scenario. 

“Well, I don’t recognize this story and it could definitely have been written by someone your age attending college, but I do have to admit that I don’t know every piece of literature on earth.” Roman let out a sigh of relief after hearing Logan say that. “Roman, if you don’t mind me asking, why would you think your boyfriend has handed in someone else’s work?” 

“I don’t know... I just had this gut feeling I had heard the same story somewhere else before, but I’m glad you think it’s probably his own work. I should probably get to writing the script now!” Roman was about to walk away, when Logan connected the events of last week with the remarkable use of Italian street names in the scenario. 

“Roman?”

“Yes?”

“One should not underestimate the instinctual feeling of something being wrong. It’s what or instincts are instilled for in humans to do. If you really feel anxious about Ted copying someone’s work or letting someone else write it for him, then why don’t you ask him about the Ponte Vecchio?”

“So that’s how you pronounce it! ...Wait does that mean it’s an actual place?” 

“Most certainly. The Ponte Vecchio, which is Italian for old bridge, is a famous bridge in Florence build in 1345. You see, the bridge is filled with little shops from silversmiths, well.. it’s mostly tourist shops now, but it’s still a beautiful work of architecture. The bridge even has a second floor that is part of a one kilometer long walkway that was made in commission of the de’ Medici family so they could get from their palace Palazzo Vecchio to their other palace Palazzo Pitti, without having to walk between the ordinary people... But I’m getting of track here. What I’m trying to say here is that if you feel like Ted hasn’t written this story then there is a big chance that he has no idea what the Ponte Vecchio is.” 

Roman looked at Logan with slight awe. How can someone know so much about a random bridge in Europe? 

“Have you ever been there?” Roman couldn’t help but ask. 

“No, but Patton used to have a nephew living near Florence, and we had tried going for a visit on multiple occasions. It just never happened.”

“What happened to the nephew?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“You said he used to have a nephew living there... so what happened to him?” 

“Oh that, don’t worry about that, he just moved somewhere else.”

“Oh okay... well I’m going to ask Ted about this... this... ponta Vecco” 

“Ponte Vecchio.”

“Yeah, that thing.” 

And with that Roman left the store, not sure if he had found the answer to his question yet, but knowing he would when he asked Ted. 

When Roman arrived back at the dorms he decided to go see Ted immediately. 

Ted was washing some dishes and was wearing those ugly cleaning gloves, that somehow still looked stylish now Ted was wearing them. Roman really didn’t want to ask this, but it was now or never.

“Hey Ted, dear?”

Ted turned around facing Roman.

“Yes darling?” This was the first time Roman realized it sounded sickeningly sweet and... almost fake? 

“Just wondering what you thought the uhm... ponte Ve... Vecch.. Vecchio, looked like. You wrote the boy was running across it to get to his parents” that was a lie, the story said the buy was hiding from the rain on the Ponte Vecchio, but if Ted had written it he would correct Roman right? He didn’t. 

“Oh yeah, don’t worry about it. It was just a name I made up for a square. I wanted it to sound a little Mediterranean.” 

“Oh okay, so it’s just a square and I shouldn’t pay much attention to it when writing the script?”

“Yup, you got it Ro Ro.” Again that sickeningly sweet tone found a way in his voice and Roman started to wonder how he never noticed that before. 

“Just wondering, where did you get the inspiration for the name?” 

“Just googled Mediterranean street names, and mixed some things together.” 

“Okay, I’m uhm... going to write the script now.” This was wrong, if Ted had googled this he would have known the Ponte Vecchio was a bridge... Ted Ice was a huge liar! He hadn’t written this scenario, but it fit the assignment perfectly, so there was a big chance someone else had written it for him... but who? 

Roman was sitting in his dorm looking at pictures of the beautiful bridge from ‘his boyfriend’s story’ thinking about who from the theatre department would know about it and could write about it. Nobody crossed his mind. He didn’t know anyone from theatre who had Italian relatives or something like that. The only Italian Roman knew was... 

ANGELO?!  
Of course! That’s how he knew the story! It was a worked out version of the rain prompt exercise from the first creative writing class Angelo had given!


	29. The plan and the accomplice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan is set in motion

Roman had a plan, but for that plan to work he needed evidence and to get that evidence he needed an accomplice, but who?

Someone from the theatre department could ‘accidentally’ tell Ted. Roman wanted to keep Angelo out of it as he felt like Angelo wouldn’t give Ted his work as a sign of friendship. Logan and Patton would be weird as he barely knew them and Ted didn’t know them at all. That left Roman with only one option. Mari. 

“Hey Ro! How’s college treatin’ ya?” Mari enthusiastically said as soon as she picked up the phone. 

“It’s fine... hey Mari are you free tonight?” 

“Yup, you wanna meet?”

“That would be fantastic. See you at the pizza place?”

“You know you will, I will always there when there’s pizza! Should I check if they have a table for 3?” 

“3?” Why would she say 3? Was Angelo with Mari at the moment? Roman’s plan wouldn’t work if he was.

“Yeah when you call to hang out I just assume Ted will be there too... wait you sounded confused... Ted’s not coming? Are you having boyfriend struggles?” Roman almost thought he could hear a little glee slip into her voice when she said that last sentence, but it was subtle enough that he would not have heard it if her statement wasn’t true.

“Something like that... see you in half an hour? I’ll explain it there.” 

“See ya!”

Roman snuck out his dorm, hoping he wouldn’t run into Ted. He isn’t sure if he could be civil with him right now, but he had to know if he was right or not, before punching his boyfriend(?) in the face. He was lucky and got to his car without much delay, other than a maze of boxes in the hall from a student moving out early. 

Mari was already there when Roman arrived at the pizza place. She was waiting by the entrance sitting on a small stone wall. 

“Heyo Romano! So... what’s wrong?” Mari went from overly enthusiastic to serious in a split second, when she saw Roman’s face. She had been happy to hang out with Roman, without Ted being there to lay his claim over him. 

Since Roman had a relationship with Ted and he was introduced into the group both Mari and Virgil had never seen Roman on his own anymore, while they had hung out with just Ted a couple of times. 

Roman didn’t start explaining until they were seated at a table and had ordered their drinks. Well he didn’t really start explaining at all. 

“Can you read this for me” he said handing the paper in his hands over to Mari. 

“What’s this. Some sort of letter that would imply a breakup?”

“No... but it might as well be... just read it okay.” 

Mari read the story Ted had handed in as his, but she didn’t know what to think of it. 

“Cool story, but what does this have to do with your relationship? I’m sorry... I just was under the impression that I was going to be the love doctor, trying to save a broken relationship here.” 

“A little crude... but I respect the creativity.” Roman said with a smirk. Mari smiled at him encouragingly to get him to explain her what’s going on. 

“Who do you think wrote this?” He asked no longer hoping anyone would say Ted. 

“How would I know? ...I would probably think Anx wrote it, though.” Mari said thoughtful. 

“Why?”

“Well I think he used to live near that bridge.” She said pointing at the words Ponte Vecchio. “Or maybe his school was around there somewhere, I’m not sure. Anyway he loved that place... Oh and the way the streets are described in the story make me think the person who wrote this, must have walked there themselves.”

“Okay thanks...” 

“Why did you want to know who wrote it?” 

“Ted said he did... but something felt off... turned out it was a worked out creative writing exercise from Anx...” Roman sighed.

“That would explain why he got like super jealous earlier, when you were praising Ted’s work!” Mari gasped, finally understanding why Virgil had been so upset with Ted lately. Not that she really blamed him for that.

“That was a different assignment, though... Oh no! How long has this been going on!” Roman said, dramatically throwing his arms up and putting one hand on his forehead. 

“Wow calm down here, Ro. Why don’t you just ask Anx?” 

“Because he will deny it?”

“Good point... He would have said something already if he was going to say something at all. 

“Mari... a few weeks ago I heard that last year Ted had threatened another theatre student to do his work for him, by saying he would tell the entire school that his biological parents were in jail. I didn’t want to believe it back then, but that boy has since quit college, because exactly that rumor had been going around...” Roman paused trying to read Mari’s expression. There was a practiced calmness to her face, when the only thing she said was.

“Oh”

“Mari, you know Angelo better than anyone else around here... is it possible Ted is threatening to reveal something about him if he doesn’t make Ted’s assignments?”

“Yes” was all Mari said. She was glad Roman was considered enough to not ask what it was, because she didn’t want to say that for him. He had to tell people that himself when he was ready for it. 

“Mari. I have a plan, but I’m gonna need your help.”

“I’m in.”

“You need to distract Ted, so I can snoop around in his stuff and see if I can find anything linking Angelo to the assignment. When I have that information I can use it to accuse Ted of plagiarism... It will probably get him kicked off of college, but... he deserves it for threatening others to do his job and almost making me commit plagiarism as well!”

“Roman?!” Mari said with a gasp and with her eyes wide, like what she just heard him say was a big shock for her. “I didn’t know you had it in you!” She laughed “like I said earlier... I’m in! Let’s safe Angelo from your wicked boyfriend!” And make Angelo your boyfriend instead she thought, but didn’t say out loud.


	30. I have a feeling someone’s been steeling my stuff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman finds everything he needs

The next weekend Mari was going to hang out with Ted while Roman was rehearsing the play he made from the scenario. Or so Ted thought, because in reality Roman was hacking into Ted’s laptop... well it wasn’t really hacking since Ted always left his laptop on and laying around. Also Roman had permission to use it, mainly to watch all the bootlegs of plays Ted had on there. 

But this time his mission wasn’t finding the best version of Wicked with the right actors playing it, no it was to find a connection between Angelo and the scenario Ted had handed in. He did get sidetracked though and downloaded all the bootlegs Ted had on his laptop on a usb, because if they broke up he still wanted to watch those performances. 

He didn’t find anything within Ted’s downloaded files that would lead him to Angelo and Ted was not logged in on his email through the email app, so he couldn’t check it without a password. 

When Roman started up google chrome to see if Ted was logged in to his email on his browser, he saw a tab with a list of students from the English literature major. Students usually didn’t have access to these lists, but Roman knew Ted had connections everywhere. Ted could have used this to gather information about Angelo and although Roman was curious, he decided to try and find another clue that didn’t involve something Angelo clearly didn’t want others to know.

If Roman had read the list he would have seen Angelo’s full name included the Virgil and Sanders, which would probably have made him realize that Angelo was the son of his favorite writer and the one person who survived the plane crash, which was why he freaked out when Roman made that story about the crash. And maybe he would have even realized that Angelo was that nephew Logan had told him about, and that Mari already knew all this information, but he didn’t read the list so he probably won’t know all this for a while. 

Roman was lucky that Ted had stayed logged in onto his gmail account, which had given Roman access to the emails Angelo had sent Ted, including the scenarios from the last two assignments. Ted hadn’t changed a thing, except for cutting of Angelo’s name from the scenarios.

Roman decided that the best chance of the teachers trusting him, was if he brought the evidence to them in person, so he grabbed Ted’s laptop and went to his teacher’s weekend walk-in hour. 

He didn’t expect to find his teacher Mister Sanders talking to Logan Sanders from the bookstore. Both men were staring at Roman who had ran in without knocking, was still wearing pajama pants, which was really unlike him, and was holding a laptop in his left hand. It was completely quiet for a few seconds, the conversation between Logan and Thomas had abruptly ended by Roman running in. 

“Mister Sanders... uhm... I mean you” Roman said pointing at Thomas, his breathing still labored from running all the way from the dorms to his teacher’s office in the library. “Can I speak with you for a moment, please. It’s about my assignment with Ted.”

“Uhm... Of course Roman. Could you wait in the hall while I finish my conversation with my old friend Logan?”

“I don’t believe that will be necessary” Logan said just before Roman could walk out of the office again. 

“Aw Logic don’t say that! You said you had something important to tell me, I’m sure Roman could wait for a few minutes.” 

Roman however looked very impatient and it cost him a lot of effort to say that yes he could wait for a little while, but he did have something very important to say.

“It won’t be necessary, because I believe both our statements to concern the same topic. Therefore adding whatever evidence Roman has found to the conversation, will lead to a more conclusive case. Which will help determine our next step concerning your student, also known as Ted Ice.” 

“Yeesh Logan, you make it sound like we’re in some sort of crime show.” Thomas said jokingly. But neither Logan nor Roman laughed, both to concentrated on trying to convince of their respective cases. 

Roman started to voice his suspensions towards Ted, mentioning he had thought he had heard his scenario somewhere else before reading it for their shared assignment. 

Logan helped his case, by stating he had seen Vi- Angelo in the store with the theatre assignment and that said man had bolted out of the store when Logan had mentioned it. 

The last bit of evidence was the conclusive evidence they needed to proof Ted was committing plagiarism. The emails containing Angelo’s stories sent to Ted’s account. 

The problem was that they couldn’t use that evidence, since they didn’t have Ted’s permission to view the emails. They needed Angelo to accuse Ted of stealing his work or they couldn’t proof anything. 

Luckily Virgil was sick of Ted’s manipulative behavior and had been in the library to get a book that didn’t seem to be available anywhere else. He had already been surprised when he saw Logan walk towards the offices of the theatre department and had wanted to follow him, but he had eventually decided against it. However when Roman had almost ran into him again without even noticing he was there, his curiosity got the better of him. Roman had just bolted past him clutching what looked like Ted’s laptop, storming into the same office Logan had disappeared in. Virgil had followed him and listened to their conversation through the thin door and walls. 

Now Virgil was just standing there with his hand on the doorknob and tears in his eyes, from the two men in there caring for him enough to voice their concerns. And suddenly he didn’t care about Ted and his threats anymore. He opened the door just after Thomas said.

“I’m sorry but we can’t do anything without either Angelo or Ted admitting to committing plagiarism” 

“I think I can help with that” Virgil said holding his right hand behind his head sheepishly. “I have a feeling someone’s been steeling my stuff.” A smirk found a way to his face and in that moment Angelo looked just as hot to Roman as he did the first time they met.


	31. For the love of, please get of the hood of my car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ted exits the story pursued by a bear (because Shakespeare referrence) and Roman starts planning a party.

After a few conversations with Mister Sanders, or Thomas as he urged Virgil and Roman to call him, and the school board it was decided to kick Ted Ice off of college, for committing plagiarism multiple times. 

When Virgil had told them, almost, everything that happened, more people had decided to speak up. Apparently Ted had gotten through a lot of college assignments by threatening others so they would make it for him.

When Ted had to go to the school board to defend himself, some of his victims were there, finally able to freely tell Ted what they really thought of him. Virgil and Roman being there as well of course. Ted was about to call Virgil out and tell everyone his real name, but he never got that far, because one ex-student by the name of Joseph Bear was there as well and he didn’t mind joining his biological parents in jail if it meant he could truly hurt Ted. 

And so Ted Ice exits the story pursued by a Bear. 

That evening was the first time in forever that Mari, Virgil and Roman hang out together as just the three of them. They were at a small fair just out of town and Roman was winning stuffed animals for both Mari and Virgil, as apology for having a horrible taste in boyfriends. 

Of course he was sad about his break up with Ted. They had been boyfriends for around two months and for a while Roman had thought Ted was all he ever wished for. But when the novelty of the relationship faded away Roman had started to suspect Ted was using him to remain popular after hurting a lot of other students. Roman had still been on Ted’s side of the argument back then, as he couldn’t believe Ted was capable of telling so many lies to his own boyfriend. But Ted was and he probably will always be a sneaky compulsive liar who would do everything to get on the top of the food chain. 

“Roman, I don’t think we can hold anymore stuffed animals” Mari Laughed when he handed her the fourth plushie that evening. Roman was pulled out of his thoughts by her comment. He wasn’t sure if it was intentional but Virgil knew it was. 

Roman had been really silent that evening, but had insisted on nothing was wrong with him. 

“Let’s go back home, I’m getting tired of just standing around.” Virgil offered. Knowing Roman probably just needed some time to get over his bad breakup. 

“Sorry, how stupid of me” Roman said almost smashing his hand to his forehead. “maybe we should do something else, I just... wanted to make it up to you guys.” 

“Hey! You didn’t know what that slippery snake of a boyfriend wassss doing behind your back!” Everyone laughed at Mari’s comment. “But I do think it’s about time you drove us home Ro, because after Ted left us in Orlando, my parents are very uptight about me staying out late.” 

Mari didn’t stop talking on the way back to her house, but then again she had been hyper all day. “Roman you should totally give an anti ex party!”

“Oh please don’t! Mari once dragged me to one of her friend’s anti ex party and it was horrible!” 

“You just say that, because you were the only boy there so everyone started flirting with you and you got like super flustered.” Mari poked Virgil’s cheek from her place on the backseat.

“Aww are you jealous none of the girls were flirting with you?” Virgil retorted. 

Mari huffed “Not as jealous as you were when R- aah I’m home. Thanks for the lift Ro!” Virgil was very glad Mari hadn’t finished that sentence. 

“Hey Anx... I’ve been thinking”

“Really didn’t know you could do it” damn why was Virgil’s first instinct to be sassy towards Roman, as soon as the man made him feel uncomfortable, which was a lot of the time, since Virgil still had a massive crush on him. 

“Nevermind.” 

“No please, Romano, what’s wrong?”

“You don’t have to answer this but... why did you write those assignments for Ted?” 

“Same as the other kids I guess...”

“Are your biological parents in jail too?” Virgil couldn’t tell if Roman was joking. 

“No, I mean there not around, so they might have well been in jail...” if they were Virgil could have at least visited them from time to time. “No, Ted had some information on me that I didn’t really want to go public” 

“Oh.” Roman wanted nothing more than to ask what it was, but also knew that Angelo would have told him by now if he trusted him enough. It hurt Roman to think that Virgil was hiding something from him, but with his anxiety and a entire different life back in Italy, Roman knew he shouldn’t press it. And Virgil was glad he didn’t. 

Just when Roman parked in the parking lot near Virgil’s apartment and they were staring in each other’s eyes, like one of those cliche movie moments just before the couple would kiss, but got interrupted by someone else, they got interrupted by a text from Mari reading;

Mari: I just realized why Ted always lies to people!

Mari: his name is literally an anagram!

Roman: like Taco cat?

Virgil sighed from his place next to Roman and started typing as well. 

Anx: No, as in the word listen can be made from the word silent

Roman: I somehow feel like that is a personal attack and therefore will banish you from my car. Get out! 

and so Virgil did get out of Roman’s car and sat himself down on the hood like a cat. 

Roman took a picture of it and sent it to the group chat

Roman: are you kidding me Anx? 

Anx: ;P

Mari: can you two stop acting like children and listen for one second!

Mari: The letters that make up Ted Ice are an anagram for....

Mari: Wait for it!

Anx: Deceit 

Roman: wow O.o how did we miss that?!

Mari: No fair, you’re to good with words!

Anx: I do study literature.

Roman: this is all very funny guys, but Anx can you, for the love of, please get of the hood of my car so I can drive away!

Anx: hmm nope ;P

Mari: ugh.. why do I have to be the adult one of the group...

Anx: Mari you’re the youngest out of all of us! 

Mari: then stop acting like children! 

Anx: fine... see ya guys.

And with that Virgil hopped off of Roman’s car and walked towards his apartment. Leaving Roman to start planning his anti ex party in his head, because no way was he going to walk away from the opportunity to give the best college party of the year!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to:  
> Icantremembermypassword And ProjectIcarus for being the only people in the comments who guessed that Ted Ice was an anagram for deceit!


	32. Your roots are starting to show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angelo is not going to go to the anti ex party and we meet a new Davide.

It was the end of June when everyone got an invitation from Roman for his fairytale themed anti ex party. He had invited his entire year from the theatre department, some friends from Orlando, Angelo and Mari, and even Logan, Patton and Thomas, for helping him get out of his relationship with Ted. 

The party would be in his parent’s house near Orlando and if you brought your stuff with you, you could stay over for the night so you could take the bus back the next day. The adults could hang out with his parents and Roman did arrange everything perfectly, but there was one thing he didn’t expect.

“No, I’m not coming” Roman couldn’t believe his ears, this was the first and only person to say no, and it also was the one person he really wanted to be there. 

“Wha... why not?!” Roman sounded confused and a little angry, because yeah he was angry. Angry at whatever reason that kept Angelo from going to his party. 

“Because I don’t like parties Sir Singalot” Virgil retorted also getting slightly angry, that Roman wouldn’t leave him alone about it.” 

“But Mari said you’ve been to an anti ex party with her before!”

“Yeah, one that consisted out of only 6 girls and was a 5 minute walk from my apartment! Your party is 3 hours away in Orlando and at least 50 people are coming, so no I won’t be there!” 

“What’s wrong with 50 people?! I’ve been to high school parties with more people attending?!” 

“You. Don’t. Have. ANXIETY!” Virgil had to calm himself down after that, when he saw Roman’s expression change. He could see his outburst had hurt Roman so he decided to be the grown up here and walk away before things escalated any further. “Whatever Princey.” 

Virgil was right. Roman was hurt after Virgil’s outburst. He was hurt because he totally forgot about the whole anxiety thing, since Angelo had gotten so comfortable around him. Now he had pushed him out of his comfort zone and Angelo had slipped through his fingers once again. 

When Virgil was back in the literature department of college he went to one of the spots only known by literary students, so Roman wouldn’t find him if he decided to look for him. He opened up Tumblr on his phone, but quickly closed it down again when the slow internet made it so none of the pictures would load. 

Just when he wanted to lock his screen he got a text from Mari. 

Mari: your roots are starting to show.

Virgil: wtf?!

Mari: look up you dimwit 

Virgil had forgotten he had once taken Mari here when she had a short day at school. 

“Figured you’d be here, after I got a hopeless text from Roman that he had messed up and was scared you were having a panic attack.”

“Aww Princey does care” Virgil said sarcastically.

“Yes Virge, he does! What the hell happened?!”

“He invited me to his party.”

“And?”

“I said no. Parties with that many people, without a way out, could give me an attack big enough to end up in hospital... but I guess he didn’t care about that.”

“Maybe he had just forgotten about your anxiety for a while. He doesn’t know you for that long, nor does he know the reasons behind your anxiety disorder, V.” Mari thought about what she was going to say next for a moment. “Thereby, if you were to take your medication and would leave early, before people would get too drunk, I know you should be able to handle it.” 

“I still wouldn’t like it.” Virgil huffed.

“No, but Roman would like you being there.” 

“I’m not just going to walk back to him and say that I will come after all, because I won’t!” 

“Come on Virge!”

“Nope. Angelo is not going to show up at his party!” 

And so Mari reported back to Roman that Angelo wasn’t going to change his mind and show up at the party. Ans even though some friends had asked if they could bring friends as well, and the party would probably get way bigger than 50 people, which would make Virgil even more uncomfortable, both Mari and Roman were disappointed that Angelo wasn’t going to be there. 

They tried again one last time at the day of the party, but Virgil had to go to work, which he definitely didn’t plan that way, so he couldn’t make it on time. Oh and he still didn’t actually want to go. 

Virgil got to his job at the small hair-salon, where he was the receptionist, which is a horrible job for someone with anxiety, but the owner usually took the phone calls, so Virgil only had to write down the appointments in the book and work the register. He was happy to have this job as the owner was a brother of his dad, banished by the family for being gay. Ha Virgil was glad his grandparents didn’t know he was gay as well, that would probably become another family drama. Not that he was planning on going back to them in Italy any time soon. 

Virgil opened the door and there his boss was, sat on the chair that was usually Virgil’s, asking if Virgil had an appointment to get those horrible looking roots fixed up. Because;

“Girllll you look like haven’t slept in ages and the fatigue sucked the color straight out of your hair” 

That’s when Virgil noticed that the salon was empty and the shutters were still in front of the windows. 

“What’s the plan uncle Rem?” 

“I’m gonna make you look Fabulous Virge! Someone looking like that can’t be the front of my salon!”

“Any ulterior motives I should be aware of?” Virgil asked suspiciously.

“I’ll tell you when you got some bleach in that mess of a haircut of yours.” Remy said with a mischievous smile.


	33. A Starbucks cup and a guitar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman’s party is going smoothly. until...

This was Mari’s first college party and she was really excited. She was 17 now and slightly disappointed that Logan and Patton had to go with her to look out for her, because otherwise her parents wouldn’t have let her go. She was also disappointed that Virgil wasn’t going to be there, because it wouldn’t be as much fun without him, and she only knew Roman, Patton and Logan, two of which were adults. Still she was determined to go and tell her friends at school everything about college parties and weird stories told by drunk people. 

She was excited sitting in the back of Logan and Patton’s car. They weren’t going to go, but They cared for Roman, and Mari needed a way to get there, so they had accepted the invitation. They were probably going to be chatting with Roman’s parents and Logan was going to keep an eye on Mari, so she wouldn’t drink any alcoholic beverages. 

Roman was really excited for his anti ex party. It had taken a while for him to accept the fact that Ted was only using him and his friends to get through college, but now he was ready to get over his relationship with Deceit as they called him now. A lot of people were going to be there and some people had +1s as well. His parents had invited some people too so the adults wouldn’t be to lonely between all the students. They had invited some college friends of their own and had realized they actually knew Logan and Patton from college as well, or well... they had heard of them through their own friends. 

Now Roman was running around like a headless chicken, trying to get everything ready before the first people were going to arrive he didn’t even had time to think about Angelo not being there... oh yeah... Angelo wasn’t going to be there... and they kind of had a fight about it... If Roman hadn’t already given up on a relationship with Angelo, he would have now. 

Roman was pulled out of his thoughts by the doorbell. Shit people weren’t supposed to arrive yet! It’s only 7 PM. Why would people show up this early?! Roman ran to the door, but straightened up before opening, so he wouldn’t look as disheveled as he was feeling. 

“Roooomaaannoo!” Mari said while hugging a shocked Roman. For a moment he could do nothing but just stand there and accept the hug, but he soon hugged her back. 

“Marinkaaaa” he answered here outcry from before. Which was followed by a huff from Mari for Roman using her full name, even though she had just called him Romano. 

“Salutations Roman, I’m sorry we seem to have arrived quite early. We could come back later, so you could finish preparations.”

“Don’t be so rude Lo, we can help him prepare for the party! ...Only if you want to of course, Roman. We’re not trying to push ourselves onto you!” 

“To be honest... I think I could use some help” Roman laughed while he let his guests in. 

“Wow, you’re parents house is amazing! And so much neater than your dorm room.” Mari said in amazement. 

“Not for long anymore, I’m afraid” Roman’s father chimed in. 

Everyone got aquatinted with each other as they continued to set things up for the party and soon Roman’s parents’ house was filled with people of all ages, or well between the ages of 17 and 52. 

The adults were sitting one the patio, while the students were talking, dancing and drinking inside. Roman wasn’t drinking though, because last time he got drunk at a party he got into a manipulative relationship. Mari wasn’t drinking either, but that was, because she was almost sure Logan had a breathalyzer in the car and would force her to use it if he suspected she would have even had one sip of alcohol. 

Everything was going smoothly. Until they walked into the house. One holding a Starbucks cup and the other carrying a guitar.


	34. You know me Lolo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Remy and a mysterious stranger to the group. 
> 
> Oh and Roman needs to chill with all his crushes.

Roman already knew the extravagant one with the Starbucks cup as a college friend from his parents, but he didn’t think he knew the man standing next to him. Not that he had time to think about that before Remy spoke up. 

“Roman Prince, girlll we haven’t seen each other in ages! Nice party you got here! If anyone needs something stronger than beer I can provide so-“

“No!”

“That’s not the react you’d expect from a room full of students?” Remy said only slightly confused until he saw the exclamation came from the patio. 

“Anyway is it okay if I leave my +1 with you, while I go sit with the grown ups? Had to pick him up from guitar practice on my way here. Don’t worry he knows how to play some musical theatre songs, so he’ll fit right in!” 

Remy squeezed the shoulder of the man next to him, before walking out to the patio and the party continued. 

Great, just when Roman thought he wasn’t going to be distracted by feelings this angel shows up. The man had brown hair that was longer on top than on the sides and was hiding his forehead and eyes a little bit. Roman had seen his eyes, though when the man had looked up to Remy, they were a soft brown, that seemed to be able to look warm and inviting, but also looked like they could see right through you. The man had a slight tan, that didn’t just come from laying in the sun and had some freckles on his face. He was slim, but not really muscular slim, more like he just didn’t eat that much. He was wearing a mint green t-shirt, some black skinny jeans and black all stars that seemed to be at least 5 years old, with how damaged the were. 

“Ro? ...Roman! You should probably stop staring. It’s getting creepy.” Mari’s words brought Roman back to reality. 

The stranger was standing on his own with his back pressed to the wall and his guitar next to him. He was just observing the party sipping from his glass of Fanta, because for some reason he didn’t think alcohol was a very good idea right now.

“Really Ro? You’re like the most hopeless romantic I’ve ever seen.” Mari sighed. ”You just came out of a relationship and you’re already staring at the mysterious figure against the wall.” 

“Mhm”

“Roman are you even listening to me?” 

“Remy Davids said he knew how to play some musical songs right? Let’s put that to the test” Roman said standing up and walking towards the stranger against the wall. 

“Ro? please don’t be a creep!” Mari quickly said before Roman couldn’t hear her anymore. Though she had to admit... there was something tempting about the stranger and also something almost familiar. 

Meanwhile Remy had joined the adults on the patio. Roman’s father decided to introduce him to his other guests, but that didn’t seem necessary. 

“This is an old college friend of ours, Remy Davids, maybe you remember him? He dropped out after his first year though.” Remy huffed at the introduction and without even looking at the two slightly familiar strangers on the patio, he started to defend himself. 

“No need to defend your actions Remy.” Logan said with a small smile, not really wanting to hear why someone would stop college, losing so many opportunities. He looked up at his husband, when Patton's grip on his hand tightened of excitement. 

“I do believe I have heard from you Remy!” He said chipper, but a little mischievous. “however I thought your name was Raimondo Davide” everyone looked at Patton with a shocked expression on their face. Remy had changed his name, after his family didn’t want him anymore and to be honest he didn’t expect to hear that name ever again. 

“Well, well, well if it isn’t Patton ‘Morality’ Sanders and Logan ‘Logic’ Mitchell. Didn’t expect seeing you two here! Haven’t seen you guys since.... never mind let’s not think about that.” Ugh his nephew could have told him they were going to be there too... this was going to be great!

After a bit of smalltalk, including the fact that Logan and Patton were married now and that that meant Logan had changed his last name to Sanders. The subject Remy had been waiting for finally came up. 

“So Remy, who did you bring with you?” Roman’s mother asked. “I’ve never seen him around before.”

“Just a friend, or well he’s more like family actually. Ha, he’s just as annoying as my brother used to be!” 

“Really?” Logan said, getting suspicious by the tone in Remy’s voice. There was something he wasn’t telling them. 

“Yup, real good on the guitar too! I’m sure we’ll be hearing him play in no time!” He chuckled. “Took some convincing to get him to bring it with him.”

“I thought you had to pick him up from guitar practice, meaning he would already have the instrument with him.” 

“Ah Logan, clever as ever. You know... I didn’t miss that one bit.” Remy was full on smirking right now, trying to get more of a reaction from the stoic man sitting to the left of him. “I meant taking it with him from the car of course.” 

“Sure you did.” Logan snarled. Patton was trying to get Logan to back down a bit, but it wasn’t really working and what also wasn’t working was that riling Logan up was now officially one of Remy’s favorite games. 

“You know me Lolo, I don’t lie, unless I have a surprise for someone that is.”

“Why do I get the feeling you do?” Logan asked, more to himself than actually to Remy.

“You actually have feelings now?” Remy laughed, which caused Roman parents to looked shocked towards both Remy and Logan. But soon enough Logan was laughing too. 

“I missed you Rem” he said between laughing.

“Yeah, yeah... I know”


	35. Andante Andante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short but sweet chapter, about a song performed by some friends.

“Hey, so you’re a friend of Remy’s?” Real smooth Roman, real smooth. 

“Ciao.. Yeah... more like family actually.” Oh god, mister mysterious has an accent! Roman calm down that heart of yours, you don’t want to get hurt again do you? 

“Remy said you could play some musical songs”

“Depends” mystery boy shrugged.

“On what?”

“Whether someone is going to provide the vocals for the songs I’m gonna play, compagno.” He winked at Roman and took another sip from his drink. 

“The entire theatre department of my college is here so...” 

“What about that girl you were talking with earlier?” Oh... oh.. “uhm... Mari... I don’t know if she can actually sing” 

“How about we go and figure out?” 

“Well we don’t have to...”

“You don’t have to do what?” Mari chimed in after having walked over to see how much of a fool Roman was making of himself. 

“He wanted to ask you to sing while he played guitar.” Mari was struggling to keep a straight face, mainly because she wasn’t straight and because of how crushed Roman must have been ones the stranger wanted to sing with her instead of him.

“Sure I’ll sing with you. I don’t know many musical songs though.” She giggled, winking at Roman, who shot her a quick glare. 

“Don’t worry signora, I’m certain you know the song I’ve got in mind, and I promise you it’s not from a musical.” The stranger grabbed Mari’s hand and his guitar case and walked to a corner with an empty armchair in it and sat down on the armrest.

“I don’t know what you’re doing and who you think you are, but I do know you’re faking that Italian accent, because I know people who are actually Italian and it sounds different.” She remarked when she stood herself next to him. 

Roman turned of the music and announced the live music, well he only announced Mari because he still didn’t know the stranger’s name. 

Mari didn’t look at the stranger anymore as she picked at the sleeve of her dress, very aware of everyone looking at her and that she still didn’t know what song she was actually going to sing. 

“Just breathe, Mari” a very familiar voice sounded from behind her, but only when the first chords of the song started to play, could she match the voice to a person. She turned around to face the man behind her awe clear on her face. 

She knew this song, had sang it before with the same person on the guitar. Only the last time they did that, it had been over Skype, several oceans between them. For once she was happy with the long intro so she could regain her composure. She looked at the guitar, a normal acoustic guitar, brown, but filled with stickers of black cats, characters from ‘The nightmare before Christmas,’ ‘My Chemical Romance,’ ‘Panic! At the Disco’ all surrounding a storm cloud, with lightning and a ragged piece of tartan fabric, painted on the wood. 

Only then did she really look at the man’s face, looking so much like she remembered his mother to look like. They looked each other in their eyes and once again she could read the words “Just breathe” from his lips. 

Mari turned back around and waited for her cue, almost bursting out in laughter seeing Roman sulking in the corner, not yet knowing what she knew about the man playing the guitar behind her. 

She started singing “Andante Andante” by ABBA, and at that moment even the adults on the patio walked back inside to listen. 

When the song was finished she turned towards the guitar player again. 

“I thought you weren’t gonna come to the party.” She said, through the applause of the party goers around them.

“I only ever said Angelo wasn’t going to show up.” He smirked at Mari. “I never said anything about Virgil.”


	36. Fairy uncle?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happend before Virgil got to the party.

The bleach was working his hair when Remy finally decided to tell Virgil his full plan. 

“So I know you want to go to that party.” Virgil looked shocked at his uncle. “Yes I know about the party. I’ve known the Prince family for ages! And that Prince boy just couldn’t shut up about this guy named Angelo, who refused to go and how he had terribly messed up his friendship with him blah blah blah. Sounds familiar?” 

“Okay, maybe I want to go, and maybe I just wanted to surprise him. But what has that got to do with my hair?”

“The theme of the party is fairytale, right?”

“Yeah? What are you gonna do, turn me into Rapunzel?” Virgil chuckled.

“I was thinking more in the lines of Cinderella.” Virgil looked at him in shock.”For the next few hours you can see me as your fairy uncle... okay no... that sounds creepy.” 

“I don’t know Rem... Cinderella just waited around till someone came around to magically safe her. I was going to go to the party regardless.” 

“Just think about it Virge! You go to that party with freshly painted hair, that matches your natural hair color, no makeup, no color contacts, maybe some different colors in your clothing. Princey’s gonna swoon!” 

“But he’s not gonna recognize me?!” 

“That’s the plan! I’m gonna rush you out at twelve, cause girl, you need some sleep. And-”

“And what? I leave my shoe there, so he can start a nation wide search to find me? The media’s already beat him to that 10 years ago.” Virgil said with a sigh. 

“Well in contrast to the fairytale, he’ll probably remember your face.”

“Probably?”

“Yeah, let’s not give him to much credit.” Both men laughed. “But leaving your shoe there would be a good idea, it would totally match the theme.”

“No, it’s not a good idea!”

“Virgil don’t shout, people think the shop is closed and that nobody’s in here.” 

“It’s not a good idea, why would I take of my shoes at a college party? Oh and, it’s the only pair of shoes I have around here...” 

Remy walked away for a second and came back with some black fur slides. 

“No.” Remy lifted his eyebrow at Virgil’s refusal and kept staring at him like that for a moment. “Fine... but you should be very glad for your own wellbeing, that the holidays have started and I don’t have to go to school in these things.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know you’re secretly loving the plan so far.” Remy smiled. “don’t say I never do anything for you.” 

“There is one problem though.” Virgil said. “I wanted to work today so I would have money for the bus ride there...” 

“What? Did you think I was going to come there just to drag you away from the party? I’m going to the party too bisshh!” Virgil really didn’t know why Remy had told him off for shouting earlier, with how loud he was being right now. “My car is your pumpkin for the night” 

“That sounds weird...”

“Yeah... just forget about that.” Remy said as he started to wash the bleach from Virgil’s hair. They were going to be late for the party, but so was Cinderella, and at least they would arrive in style.

When Virgil’s hair was done Remy and Virgil got in the car to make the long drive to Orlando. They made their first stop at Virgil’s apartment, so Virgil could remove his makeup and put on his only shirt that wasn’t black, purple or band merch. For some reason Remy also wanted Virgil to bring his guitar as it would provide an excuse for him bringing a +1 to the party. 

Virgil also decided to take almost the max amount of his anxiety medication that he was allowed to take just to be sure, even though that would mean he couldn’t drink any alcohol, which legally he isn’t even allowed to drink yet anyway. 

The second stop was at a Starbucks in Orlando, near the Prince’s house, because Remy needed his caffeine right then and there. 

The last stop was in front of Roman’s house. Virgil was still nervous, when Remy decided to just march in and he felt like he was dropped of at the kids table of a huge Italian family dinner, when Remy left him with Roman. 

Virgil stuck the walls and drank some soft drinks until Roman approached him. Shit he hadn’t thought about one thing, his voice! Roman was definitely going to recognize his voice. Panic mode engaged! Reverting back to Italian!

“Ciao...” Nope shit, English Virgil, English. “Yeah... more like family actually.” WTF was that accent? Well gotta roll with it now. 

After some small talk Mari joined the conversation and she looked very suspicious of him. 

“He wanted to ask you to sing while he played guitar.” Thanks Roman, always the conversation saver. 

Mari agreed to sing with him and walked with him to the corner of the room. But then she had to call him out on his fake accent, well that was to be suspected. 

Just before he started playing he could see Mari getting nervous. He completely dropped the accent and said.

“Just breathe, Mari” 

Only when he started playing the familiar chords did she turn around. They looked each other in the eyes.

“Just breathe” virgil mouthed with an encourage smile, before Mari turned around again, waiting for her cue. 

When the song was finished Mari turned back to him.

“I thought you weren’t gonna come to the party.” She asked confused.

“I only ever said Angelo wasn’t going to show up.” He smirked at Mari. “I never said anything about Virgil.”

And now Mari was in on the plan. And Virgil definitely hadn’t missed the suspicious looks from Logan and Patton, who were standing near the glass doors to the patio.

Soon everyone wanted to sing a song with mystery boy, but Virgil was sure to only let Roman sing with him a few minutes before midnight, so Remy would pull him away afterwards.


	37. Chemically imbalanced romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when the clock strikes 12?

The singing stopped at around 11, because Virgil’s fingers were starting to hurt from playing the guitar for so long. Roman was still flirting with Virgil and Virgil tried his best to be less sarcastic than he had been when they shared a college course together. Giving Roman hope, and promising him he would play some more music later in the night, and that Roman could provide the vocals then. 

Mari couldn’t believe the transformation her best friend had gone through, just to go to the party. She hadn’t actually seen his natural hair color in at least 4 years, well except for his roots when he was to lazy to get them touched up, and he barely left the house without his color contacts. The mint green shirt she had once gifted him as a joke, but she hadn’t recognized it, since he never actually wore it. 

Something she also didn’t understand was why Virgil had shown up to the party with his boss. She had been to the hair salon a couple times to pick him up after work, and had seen the Virgil interact very comfortably with his boss, but still... The man did seem to know the family, so it could have been his ticket into the party, but he also could have just sneaked in and reveal who he was. Which up to this point he hadn’t done yet... Virgil had a bigger plan, but what was it?

“We’ve been talking for a while now, but I still don’t know much about you my chemically imbalanced romance.” That totally didn’t describe their whole relationship up to this point Virgil though cynically at Roman’s words. He looked at Roman with a raised eyebrow to encourage him to elaborate on his statement. He only wanted to talk a minimum amount, as he was afraid to slip up and drop the accent as he had done with Mari. 

“What I’m trying to say is, I don’t even know your name or where you go to school.” 

“Name’s Virgil.” Mari choked on a gasp hearing him say that. She never in a million years expected to hear his name come from his own mouth, ever again. 

“Mari are you okay?” Roman asked concerned, while patting her on the back. 

“Choke carefully” Virgil said hiding a laugh behind his hand. Which caused Mari to glare at him. 

“I’m good” she said as soon as she was finished coughing.

“As for school, I went to an international high school and now I attend a college not to far from here.” Virgil shrugged. Roman was so entranced by Virgil that he didn’t see the parallels between Him and Angelo.

“How about we play that song now?” Virgil asked Roman with 5 minutes till midnight. “You choose and I say whether or not I know how to play it.” Virgil cringed at how bad his own fake accent was. He sounded like a second hand Mario impersonator, but luckily Roman didn’t seem to mind. 

Remy and the other adults were back on the Patio. It took a while for Patton to formulate the question he wanted to ask since he saw the boy Remy had shown up with play the guitar with Mari, but now he had to ask it.

“Remy?” He asked

“What up?”

“I was wondering... earlier you said that boy was practically family, did you mean real family, like a Davide? Or...” 

“Pff most of the Davide’s I don’t see as family anymore after what they did to me... and to you guys to for that matter.” Remy shrugged. “This kid stood in front of my salon one day, looking for a job so he could actually buy food AND pay rent.” 

“That poor baby!” Patton gasped. “Couldn’t his parents help him out a bit?”

“No... they uhm... they aren’t really able to provide any money for him.” Remy answered pensively 

Inside Virgil had taken his seat on the armrest of the armchair again. He kicked of his right shoe so he could put his foot on the chair. It wasn’t a really practical position, and he was very glad to have a guitar for left handed people, otherwise this position would be even worse, but Virgil had no idea what other reason he would have for leaving his shoe behind. 

Roman had chosen to sing ‘Out there’ from ‘The hunchback of Notredame’ because he loves disney. It was not a song Virgil expected him to choose, but it was one of the only Disney songs Virgil actually knew to play, and Roman Just HAD to sing a Disney song. 

Roman was good. Really good, Virgil almost messed up a couple times, because he was too entranced listening to his singing. But just after the song had ended the clock chimed twelve.

“Speaking about parents.” Remy said already standing at the glass doors “I promised them I would bring you home directly after guitar practice, and now it’s already 12 AM!” He shouted at Virgil before grabbing him by his right arm. Virgil had just enough time to grab his guitar case before his uncle dragged him out of the house. “Bye Bye Bitchesss” Remy shouted as he closed the door behind them and dragged Virgil to the car. Only when they were driving did the two start laughing their asses off. The plan had been set in motion, now they just had to wait for Roman to take the next step. 

Back in the house Roman was already complaining towards Mari again. 

“I didn’t even get his number!” He sighed in his own very overdramatic way.


	38. Two weeks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What has happened two weeks after the party?

TWO WEEKS! it had been TWO weeks and Virgil was still missing his right shoe. He had given his uncle, his furry sliders back after 3 days and had bought a cheap pair of flip flops. His left shoe was laying next to his couch, both unused as he preferred sitting on the kitchen counters, or the table. Virgil should have never agreed with Remy! Why would he leave his shoe with Roman and not give him any hints as to how to return it? He was going to Remy to get his hair back to black and purple today and maybe he should buy some actual sneakers afterwards and just forget about his failed fairytale. They never come true anyway and it’s not like he didn’t already know that...

His outfit looked terribly mismatched. Virgil was wearing his usual black skinny jeans with a Jack Skellington t-shirt, he was also wearing a beanie, even though it was summer, just so he could hide his brown hair. That wouldn’t be too bad if he wasn’t also wearing those stupid flip flops... yeah, he was totally buying new shoes today. 

On his way to the salon he got a text from Remy saying he had a hair emergency and since Virgil didn’t actually pay him and the ‘emergency’ did, Virgil had to reschedule his appointment. Then on his way to the shops it started raining. The shoe store was closed, because they were remodeling and Virgil would have gone to the bookstore to dry up if he wasn’t scared for Patton and Logan’s reactions to finding out that, yes it had been him on the party and yes he was planning on re-dyeing his hair again. He was fairly sure they were already highly suspicious of him and just waiting for him to come clean himself, but he wasn’t up for it today.

Virgil was completely soaked by the time he got back to his apartment and he couldn’t wait for the day to end, even though it was only 2 PM. He kicked his stupid flip flops of and threw the beanie to the other side of the room. When he got to the bathroom to grab a towel, he got a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Makeup completely ruined, as his eyeliner had started to drip. He looked like on of those melted crayon paintings, and even though it was a look, it was definitely not the look he was going for. 

Virgil had no idea why he reapplied his foundation and eyeliner after drying his face and hair with the towel, it was not like someone was coming to visit or anything. Maybe he just wanted to feel a little better about himself, maybe it gave him a reason not to go to bed at 2 PM, so he could actually sleep that night or maybe he was secretly still hoping prince dimwit was going to show up with his right shoe, and he wanted to look good when that happened. 

Ugh who was he kidding? If Roman had realized it was him, he would have shown up already, and Mari wasn’t helping him one bit, either. Sending him on one wild goose chase after the other, just to annoy both her friends. 

Yes she had wanted them to be together from the start, but after they’d messed it up so many times already, she had no problem messing with them for a little bit. After all, if Virgil really wanted his shoe back, he could just ask Roman for it right?

TWO WEEKS! It had been TWO weeks since Virgil walked into his life, played a few songs to Roman’s heart, and got dragged out of his life again. It was as if Virgil never existed. Mari had helped Roman come up with possible scenarios surrounding the disappearance of the young man, who didn’t even come by to pick up his shoe, he left at the party. 

Angelo had helped too in the beginning, but for some reason got more and more disappointed in Roman, with every failed attempt to find the mystery man. Roman wasn’t sure why... maybe Angelo didn’t believe in love at first sight, maybe Angelo was apprehensive, because he thought Virgil was going to treat him like Ted did, or maybe Angelo actually liked Roman back all this time and now was jealous that Roman had moved on? 

Ugh who was he kidding? Roman definitely hadn’t moved on from Angelo, and maybe he only liked Virgil to try and fill the empty hole in his heart left by Angelo not reciprocating his affections (who is the emo now?). Luckily Mari had been a great help by distracting him. 

Together they had searched almost all of Orlando by now, including Disney World and Sea World and they had found no trace of Virgil. Roman was about to give up when he decided to type “Virgil Orlando” into Google, even after Mari had told him not to, since it would probably not give any new leads. 

They had tried Facebook before, but there were no Virgils from Orlando on there. After that they had given up the internet search. Until now. Roman pressed enter and was surprised with the amounts of hits he got. His Virgil had to be somewhere in there right? 

Oh... 

Most of the hits were over ten years old, or at least about the plane crash ten years ago....

Was there a Virgil that died in that crash? No these articles were about the survivor. Was Virgil, the man attending his party just 2 weeks ago, the lonely surviver of the crash?! That was so AWESOME! Okay no it wasn’t awesome, that probably wasn’t the right word... but he had had a celebrity in his house! At his party! He had to call Mari about this new discovery! 

First he clicked on one of the articles to get some more information, then when he was about to call Mari he read a sentence that caught his attention. 

“Virgil Sanders, son of the famous youth novelist Nikki Sanders and her husband Michael, was the only survivor of the crash, that took the live of both of his parents and many others. He remains in Florida Hospital Orlando, while several family members battle over custody in court.” 

Roman continued reading the article and even found an update on Virgil’s whereabouts. He was curious, after reading that, the Virgil he met at the party, might be related to his favorite author. However the last paragraph crushed his excitement, since it meant both the chances of the boy being the same Virgil and the chances of finding him somewhere nearby sunk dramatically. 

“After winning the case and gaining legal custody over Virgil, his grandparents doubled their efforts in hiding his whereabouts from the press. It is assumed they changed his name and moved him somewhere away from Florida, to shield him from the media attention and family members who wanted to abuse the kid’s unwanted fame.”

Poor kid... going through a traumatic experience followed by being ripped away from everything he knows, because the media can’t leave him alone... 

Welp the Virgil he met probably isn’t this Virgil then... He put his phone back in his pocket and closed his laptop. 

“Roman? Did you remember to bring your bedding from your dorm? I wanted to wash them, but I can’t find them anywhere?” His father called from the garage. 

“No... shit...”

“Language”

“Sorry dad... I’ll go and get them right now! I’ve forgotten my Bootleg musicals over there too so it won’t be a 3 hour drive for nothing.”

“Will you be back tonight?”

“No I think I’ll stay over. Not really feeling like driving for 6 hours” 

“I’ll tell your mom she doesn’t have to save dinner for you then!” 

“Thanks dad!” Roman said, before rushing out to his car in the driveway. Maybe he should text Mari and Angelo that he will be in town. Nah, he’ll just surprise them if he wants to hang out after the drive.

Roman got into his car and looked at the bag, containing Virgil’s right shoe, in the passenger seat. Should he leave it behind? How big is the chance he will meet Virgil at college? Not really big, probably infinitesimal, still Roman couldn’t leave the bag behind, because a chance was a chance for his hopelessly romantic heart.


	39. A dream is a wish your heart makes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We’re getting closer and closer to the end of this fic. 
> 
> Will Roman find Virgil and fall for him? Or will he fall for Angelo?

Roman arrived at his dorm at 5 PM. The dorms were deserted, because everyone had gone home for the holidays. The dorm room next to him was still completely empty after Ted had been kicked out of college, but he was sure he was going to get a new neighbor next semester. Dorm rooms never stayed empty for too long after all. Roman opened the door to his room it was empty, not because there was no stuff in there, but because it was missing the sounds that were usually around and missing the cozy decorations Roman always took home with him during holidays, the fairy lights and his houseplants were now in his room in Orlando.

He couldn’t stay here. The room he normally felt at home in, now felt so wrong, so not like himself. He glanced at the empty picture frames on his desk, they once hung on his wall, filled with pictures of Himself with Ted. He really needed to take some new pictures to fill those with, but you just couldn’t force memories. 

Roman decided he didn’t want to stay in his dorm room any longer than he had to, especially not with it looking like this. He left his room and drove to the usual Starbucks, where to his surprise, he saw Remy sitting at one of the tables outside. It wasn’t surprising seeing Remy at a Starbucks or carrying a Starbucks cup, but he didn’t expect Remy to be here, in this town, of all places. Roman greeted him and walked inside to order. After getting his drink he walked outside again and sat with Remy, so he might be able to get some information about the mysterious Virgil, Remy brought into his life. 

“Hey Remy. What are you doing here?”

“Existing” Remy answered sounding exhausted. Apparently someone had bleached their hair at home to the point that it was half orange, half yellow and definitely completely dead. Remy had been trying to make the hair at least seem a little more presentable for the entire afternoon. He did get paid for it, but even he thought it wasn’t worth it as his client, was socially exhausting. 

Roman learned that Remy actually lived around here and that his shop was on the edge of town. After talking about college and his parents for a while Roman decided it was time to ask about Virgil. 

“So the man you brought to my party the other day? Virgil right?”

Remy nodded, waiting for Roman to continue.

“Does he also come from around here?” 

“Yeah, he grew up a few blocks from here.” 

“Does he still live here?”

“Yup” Remy popped the p like Angelo often did, when he thought he was answering something that was very obvious. 

“Can you give me his address?”

“Why?” Remy almost wanted to scream, ‘you already have it idiot’ but opted for just suspiciously asking why.

“He kinda left his shoe at my house after you dragged him out, and I want to return it!” Roman quickly said. After not getting an immediate response from Remy he added; “But if you want to give it to him that’s fine to, I actually have it with me in the car so I can give it to you right now.

“And miss out on some well earned sleep? Yeah no thanks girl. I have a party tonight and I feel like getting some hours of sleep in before that!” Roman looked at the very caffeinated drink in Remy’s hand, but decided not to comment on it. 

“If you give me his address I will give him back his shoe this evening.” Roman tried again. “Or you could call him and ask him to meet me somewhere.” 

Remy burst out in laughter. 

“I highly doubt he would pick up. But thanks for the image, that was just what I needed right now!” He almost cried laughing. “Anyway.” He said when he calmed down a little. ”You know the ‘Four Sides’ apartment building?”

“Yeah, my friends Angelo lived there.” Remy almost burst out in laughter again, but he managed to keep his face as straight as possible. By now Remy really hoped Virgil never told him the number of his apartment and Roman just knew the route there, because the numbering in that building didn’t make any sense. 

“Number 4A” Remy just said, glad when he saw no recognition in Roman’s face. “Go bring Cinderella her shoe.” He encouraged Roman, before dumping his empty cup in the trash and walking away. Should he warn Virgil that Roman is coming his way? ...hmm... Nope. Even in his thoughts he popped the p, the right answer being very obvious. 

Virgil had definitely not spend his afternoon searching for Disney songs he could learn to play, because Roman liked them so much. 

He had noticed he had become rusty with actually reading the chords, while playing them was still locked in his muscle memory, reading music sheets proofed to be a bit more difficult. The things he had learned to play in Italy were mainly from people in YouTube videos showing him how to do it. Actually reading music sheets, he hadn’t done that since his parents had died, but doing it now didn’t upset him as much as he thought it would. 

By now it was 6 PM and Virgil had learned how to play ‘How far I’ll go’ from Moana and ‘Go the distance’ from Hercules. The first definitely not being a good choice to get back into reading sheet music, but sometimes Virgil actually likes a challenge and it worked out in the end. After those songs he had wanted to play something a little easier on his fingers. 

He started playing ‘A dream is a wish your heart makes’ from Cinderella, this is one of the songs he knew from memory, one of the songs his father had taught him, and very fitting for the current situation.

Because without Virgil knowing it. Roman was entering his apartment complex at that exact moment. Searching for his apartment, apartment 4A.


	40. Do you wanna build a snowman?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who will Roman find behind mystery door number 4A?

Roman got to the fourth floor of the apartment building and couldn’t believe it! Angelo was living in the same building and at the same floor as Virgil and he hadn’t said a thing! He hadn’t even said that the description sounded a little bit familiar. If they lived in the same building they should have at least seen each other once or twice! 

Then he heard it. A guitar playing ‘a dream is a wish your heart makes’ he would recognize that tune everywhere. Maybe Remy had told Virgil he was coming. Maybe Virgil actually liked Roman back! Roman continued walking towards the sound, checking the numbers on the doors on his way there. But then he stopped just one door short of 4A. It was the first moment Roman realized where he was. 4A was the number on Angelo’s apartment door. The music was coming from in there. A chord was played wrong. 

“Ah Fuck” 

That was definitely Angelo’s voice. 

Everything that happened over the past 6 months finally clicked together in Roman’s brain. The way Angelo freaked out when Roman told his story of the plane crash, while Virgil was the name of the kid who survived the crash. If Angelo was Virgil Sanders it would make sense that Roman’s story could trigger a panic attack. 

And Logan knew how to calm Angelo down immediately, too! Like he had already done it a few times before. He is a Sanders, right? Patton had talked about having a writer in his family once, could that be Nikki Sanders. It would make sense...

Then Roman realized that Mari must have known all along, with those two being childhood friends. Mari had sometimes called Angelo, V, without either of them noticing something being off. Roman never commented on it before. And he had a feeling he didn’t have to anymore either. 

Mari had also changed her behavior towards Virgil after they sung together. And when Virgil had introduced himself she coughed, maybe it was from shock, maybe after all that time of being Angelo, she hadn’t expected him to say Virgil. 

And then there was that secret that gave Ted leverage over Angelo, so he would write for him. With all the press almost attacking the poor boy who had just lost both his parents, Angelo probably didn’t want anyone to know he was Virgil, so the media wouldn’t hunt him down again.

But now Roman knew... and that was a problem. If Virgil didn’t want him to know it over the past 6 months, then why would he want him to know it now? One thing Roman was sure of. He couldn’t hide that he knew, not for a million bucks. Sooner or later Roman was going to call him Virgil...

Well better sooner than later right? 

Roman knocked on the door and the music stopped. He could still run away. Pretend it never happened and not ruin their friendship, but he didn’t. Instead he just stood there with Virgil’s right shoe, waiting for Virgil or Angelo to open the door. 

A knock on the door caused Virgil to stop playing. His first instinct was to look at the clock. The walls in his apartment complex were pretty thin, so he was worried for a noise complaint, maybe from someone who had just returned from work. That was highly possible at... 6:13 in the evening. Virgil put his guitar on the table and walked to the door thinking about that people should be grateful for having live music, while they have dinner. People at fancy restaurants pay extra for that sort of thing. 

Virgil was standing in front of his door now. Hand on the doorknob, but he couldn’t get himself to open it. He didn’t want to face someone who was angry with him, and he had stopped playing so maybe they would just leave him alone now...

Knock knock knock.

Or maybe not. Virgil waited a few more seconds with opening the door as he didn’t want it to seem obvious that he had been waiting behind it without doing something.

Virgil shrieked when he saw Roman standing in the hallway. Roman had heard him play guitar, Roman could now see him with brown hair and brown eyes. Roman knew he was Virgil! 

Virgil wasn’t ready for this at all! So once again his instincts kicked in and he threw the door closed in Roman’s face. 

When Roman had seen Virgil standing in his apartment, with his natural hair and eye color, but also with the pale foundation and the eyeliner Roman knew he was right, but when Virgil shrieked and quickly closed the door, he felt like he had done something terribly wrong.

“Uhm Anx?” Roman said from the other side of the door. “I think I’ve got your shoe?” 

The only reaction Roman got was a soft whimper from the other side of the door. Did that mean Ange... Virgil was starting to panic? Like in that bad way that can cause a panic attack? Roman had to do something! So he knocked on the door again. 2 times slow, 2 times a little quicker and 1 time slow again. 

“Do you wanna build a snowman?” He sang through the door, which caused Virgil to groan. 

“It’s summer and we live in Florida, Sir Sing-a-lot!” Came his irritated response. 

Okay no panic attack, just reflexes and instincts. 

“Can you not be like Elsa for a second and let me in?” 

“Only if you stop with the Frozen references.” 

“Deal! But I’m not making promises about references from other Disney movies.”

“Ugh fine.” Virgil said opening the door and letting Roman walk in.


	41. Pizza, revenge and bootlegs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman and Virgil talk things out while eating pizza and watching a legally blonde bootleg.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter and I’ve also started a new fic! It’s a real dark and sad one though... but if you’re still interested here’s a link:  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/15744510/chapters/36610500

Roman and Virgil had a lot to talk about. Virgil had to explain why he hadn’t told Roman his real name once they had known each other for a while. He explained how he was scared that Roman would hate him once he knew he had lied to him about his name, but that he did definitely trust Roman with that information. 

He also explained how Ted used his history as being the kid from the crash, to keep leverage over him. Roman cringed at hearing that. Realizing that if he had read the list with students from the literary department, he would have already known all this a few months ago! 

Roman of course had to tell Virgil about the list, and how that probably was how Ted figured it out. Then he had to tell about his last two weeks with Mari, trying to find “Virgil” and how he now realized that she had basically just used him to play tourist in Orlando. She had also told him not to google the name, but he had done it anyway, which was how he had found out about the plane crash. He also had to admit that he only figured it all out when Remy had given him the number for Virgil’s apartment, and it turned out to be his apartment.

The two men came to the conclusion that they had to get Mari back for playing both of them, by stopping Roman from finding things about Virgil. While they were planning their little revenge, Roman ordered a pizza and ceremonially gave Virgil back his right shoe. 

Virgil grabbed his guitar from the table and put it back in its case. Even after protests from Roman who wanted to hear him play again. He sat himself on the table instead and they talked like that, with Virgil sitting on the table and Roman on the couch. Roman opened the door when the pizza arrived and they ate and laughed together. They had missed this. Just hanging out together, no tension, no secrets, no lies. Just the two of them. 

Later that evening both men were sitting on the couch, pressed against each other, while watching a legally blonde bootleg on Virgil’s laptop. They were both very aware of how close the were to each other, which made it hard to concentrate on the musical performance at first. But somewhere at the end of the first act, Roman had stretched his arm out, over Virgil’s shoulder. He had done it very carefully as to not scare the other, but Virgil had, to Roman’s and his own surprise, accepted the change in position quite easily. 

During the skipping rope song in the beginning of the second act Virgil let his head fall on Roman’s shoulder. Which made Roman smile like a mad man. This was nice, so much nicer as when he was with Ted, Roman thought to himself. And he wasn’t even actually in a relationship with Virgil! 

Roman thought about a conversation he had had with Logan just after he broke up with Ted. 

“Often someone who is being manipulated won’t see it that way himself, sometimes their surroundings don’t even recognize it, but they’ll notice when they develop a similar relationship with someone else, someone who doesn’t manipulate them. They’ll notice that what the manipulator did to them was wrong, even if it felt right at the time.” Logan had said.

Was this what was happening right now? Of course Virgil didn’t have the same relationship to Roman as Ted had when they were together... but Roman wanted to be with Virgil, he wanted them to be in a relationship. For the first time in a while Roman thought back about his attempted flirting and how he had wanted to be with Virgil from the very start and he realized now that that feeling had never gone away. Ted had just make him believe it had, that was al Ted was good at after all, make believe, lies and deceit.

When the musical was over Roman stood up to leave, which made Virgil drop from his shoulder and fall on the couch. Virgil had almost fallen asleep against Roman, but was now rudely interrupted from his half slumber by his pillow walking away. 

“Ugh back to the bland ol’ dorm room.” Roman sighed as he stretched out his upper body, causing his shirt to ride up a bit. 

“I thought you liked your dorm?” Virgil asked sleepily.

“Not when all my decorations are at my parents’ house” Roman answered while walking to the front door of Virgil’s apartment. 

“You could stay here.” Virgil shrugged. “I mean... not like I have such an aesthetically pleasing, Pinterest room like you, but... never mind it’s stupid.” Virgil got out of his sleepy state in time to realize Roman probably didn’t want to stay and sleep on the couch, without any spare clothes or even a toothbrush, while he could sleep on an actual bed, in a room were his own stuff is at. 

“I would like that... if that’s really okay with you, that is!” Roman answered him. Virgil needed some time to process what just happened and what Roman had said. He stared at Roman for a while, which made Roman slightly uncomfortable, but quickly shook it off and walked over to his build in closet. 

Roman was just standing there confused about the situation until he felt a blanket being thrown at his back. 

“Yeah... you can stay.” The statement was followed by a yawn from Virgil. “Good night, Romano.” He said as he himself walked towards the bathroom to get changed into his pajamas and to remove the makeup from his face. 

“Good night, Virgil.” Roman sighed as he made himself comfortable on the couch.


	42. Don’t you dare leave me like that!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens the next day?

Virgil woke up at 5 AM only fully realizing that Roman was asleep on his couch, when he walked out of his room to get a coffee, as he didn’t feel like going back to sleep. He also didn’t want to risk waking Roman up, as Roman was his guest, and looked really cute sleeping, with his usual stylish hair, messily hanging over his eyes. 

After staring at Roman for longer than Virgil would ever admit to anyone, he decided to opt for a glass of Fanta and some chocolate coffee beans. To limit the chance of waking Roman up by using his pretty noisy coffee machine He grabbed the stuff he needed from the kitchen, that was in the same room as the living room, and turned around to go back to his room. 

He almost had a heart attack when he saw Roman sitting upright on the couch looking at him curiously with his head tilted to the side. Roman got a little shock to at being caught staring at Virgil. He just couldn’t help it! Virgil looked so cute in his black ‘dark side’ t-shirt and thin gray sweatpants. ....Okay they had been staring at each other for a while now... maybe he had to say something?

“Uhm hi?” Roman managed to say after a few seconds, breaking the silence, which Virgil was grateful for.

“Hey. Sorry if I woke you up.” Virgil whispered back. “You should probably go back to sleep, Ro... it’s like 5:15 in the morning.

“Why are you up?” Roman asked.

“Didn’t feel like sleeping anymore.” Virgil shrugged.

“Same” Roman said eyeing the candy in Virgil’s hand. “Let’s be up early together.” He scooted over to create some room on the couch for Virgil to sit on. 

Virgil sat down, but somehow hanging out now was more awkward as it had been last night. Like both men had been keeping something from the other and were now searching for a topic, that wouldn’t feature that something. 

There was some smalltalk being whispered, but by 6:30 AM Virgil was glad it was a ‘normal’ time to actually make breakfast. He stood up and walked back to his kitchen taking the few chocolate coffee beans that were left with him. This got him a whine from Roman, at which he smiled fondly. Oh god... he was so hopelessly in love with this whiny overdramatic man. He had tried to push it away for so long, but now he had been honest about his life and his name, so he had no reason to push Roman away anymore... 

Roman suppressed a whine when Virgil stood up from the couch, but when he also took the candy with him, Roman couldn’t help it. He slightly turned red at the sound he made, but Virgil didn’t see it as he was searching for something they could eat for breakfast. 

When Roman was searching for Virgil he had thought one of the first things he would do after finding him, was asking him on a date. But now Virgil turned out to be his old friend Angelo and Roman suddenly wasn’t so sure about getting that date anymore. Sure he had liked Virgil from the day they met... but Virgil never really seemed that interested and only saw Roman’s flirting as a game... or did he? Suddenly, and probably a few months too late, Roman realized that Virgil had anxiety and that he seemed to mask that anxiety with sarcasm... the same sarcasm that had shot back all Roman’s flirting attempts. had Roman made him feel anxious, while he was otherwise comfortable around him, by flirting? Had Roman read him all wrong back then and did Virgil actually like him?! Roman almost gasped at his own revelation, but kept quiet. Right now was not the time. He was going to organize something big and romantic for Virgil, and it was going to be amazing!

After eating some cereal, because Virgil was only a student after all and didn’t really have any fancy breakfast foods in his cupboards, Roman once again stood up to leave. He was still wearing his clothes from the day before, so he immediately walked to the door, while Virgil followed him to let him out. 

“Thanks for letting me crash here.” Roman said standing in the hallway, while Virgil was still standing in his apartment.

“Yeah no prob-“ Virgil squealed when Roman hugged him. Which caused Roman to quickly lean back so he could look Virgil in the face, but not letting go of him. 

“Sorry... theatre thing.” He said sheepishly.

“It’s okay... just warn a guy next time.” Virgil answered before finally looking up into Roman’s blue eyes. They stood like that for a little longer. Just looking at the other. And suddenly Roman was kissing Virgil, but before Virgil’s mind could catch up and tell him that that kiss definitely wasn’t a theatre thing, Roman had already pulled back, horrified of his own impulse. 

Roman quickly let go of Virgil muttering apologies, before running down the hallway towards the staircase, so he didn’t have to wait for an elevator to arrive. He messed up... he had messed things up horribly with Virgil! Any chance he might have had... gone! Just on kiss, it was just one kiss and it had probably ruined their friendship forever! Why did he have to be a hopeless romantic? Why?! 

Meanwhile Virgil was standing at his front door still trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. Roman had kissed him! Roman actually still liked him after all the lies he had told and he had kissed him! But Roman had also ran away... probably horrified that he had just ruined their friendship... If Virgil didn’t do anything right now, Roman would probably never kiss him again! He didn’t think he could live like that. Knowing what a kiss from Roman felt like, but never receiving one ever again. 

Virgil could only just remember to grab his keys, before storming down the hallway in his pajamas. Someone else just exited the elevator, so Virgil jumped in it, hoping it would be faster then the stairs, so he could catch up with Roman. He finally did at the parking lot and grabbed Roman’s arm.

“Don’t you dare leave me like that, ever again.” He said before hugging Roman tightly. “Ti amo, Roman.” Shit why did he revert to Italian again? Roman needed to hear this! 

“I love you too.” Roman said before hugging Virgil back and kissing him on his cheek. Once again the looked each other in the eyes for a moment, before Roman initiated another kiss, but this time he didn’t have to worry whether the kiss was consensual or not, he knew it was. 

And so they were standing at the parking lot of Virgil’s apartment complex, finally being able to enjoy the feeling of kissing the other.


	43. And the first thing you’re mind thinks to do is to quote an old Disney Channel movie?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love, panic and laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: very small panic attack in this chapter. Not really detailed, but it’s there.

Okay, so that happened. They kissed, confessed they loved each other and then kissed again. Roman had asked if they could make it official and Virgil had agreed. Now they were finally boyfriends and both men couldn’t be happier. 

Roman had returned to Virgil’s apartment, after brushing his teeth and getting into a fresh set of clothes. He was greeted with a shy kiss, everything only dawning on Virgil when Roman was standing in front of him again, even better looking now, wearing something that wasn’t wrinkled and his hair actually styled how it usually is. 

After a little awkward and giggly greeting they entered Virgil’s apartment. Now Virgil and Roman were actually together, they had to change their plans for their little revenge on Mari for not helping them at all the last 2 weeks. Their new plan was to pretend that Roman still didn’t know who Virgil was, and that Virgil would get more and more frustrated about it, until they would have a fake fight, just to scare Mari a bit. 

The only person who knew Roman would probably know Angelo was Virgil, was Remy, and he would love to be their little accomplice in their plan. So Virgil texted Remy about their plan and soon got a thumbs up emoji send back to him. 

“What about Patton and Logan? Should they be in on the plan too?” Roman asked while they were discussing what they were going to do. 

“Nah... Patton can’t keep secrets for shit... and Logan would probably tell us this isn’t a good idea...” Virgil said thoughtfully. “Let’s just try and avoid the bookstore for a while...” 

“Doesn’t Mari come there like every day? What if she has already told them you were at the party?!”

“And risk Patton telling you? I doubt she’s done that.” Virgil chuckled, knowing exactly what Mari is like. “There is a big chance she will tell them if we’re ‘fighting’ though... and that probably wouldn’t end very well... maybe we shouldn’t do this, Ro...” 

“So you’re perfectly fine with pranking Mari, but not Logan and Patton?”

“They’re family, Princey! They’ve done so much for me when I was younger...” Virgil paused for a bit, while panic was slowly starting to cloud his brain. “What if they’ll hate me for pretending to be someone I’m not at that party? What if they’ll hate you for arguing with me? What if...” 

“Wow, wow... Anx chill!” 

“Oh god and Mari is going to hate us too... this was a stupid idea. I never should have come up with it!” Virgil’s breathing was getting quicker now, which caused Roman to freak out too. He had no idea what to do if Virgil freaked out. Usually Logan or Mari was around if something like this happened. 

“Anx? .... uhm Virgil, Virge?” Roman tried to keep his voice steady to not show his own panic. He wanted to call Mari, but that would make the plan, Virgil was freaking over, fail immediately and would probably make Virgil feel guilty about that too. 

Roman couldn’t understand Virgil’s babbling anymore and only heard “stupid” or “pathetic” coming from Virgil’s lips now and then. What was he gonna do? He had to something! Virgil was his boyfriend now, it was his task to know what to do in these situations! What did Logan do to calm him down, again? Made him look at him right? 

“Virgil calm down please... Can you look at me, right at me. Just like kindergarten, okay?” Not that they knew each other in kindergarten (or did they? ;p), but Roman just couldn’t stop making disney/musical references even if he tried.

“Kindergarten?” Virgil managed to push from his mind to his mouth looking up at Roman confused. 

“Yeah... don’t think about it to much.”

“Why kindergarten?” Somehow the expression seemed so weird to Virgil that it managed to slowly get his mind away from the small panic attack he was having and Roman noticed. 

“The truth?” Roman said sheepishly. 

Virgil nodded.

“I think I just unconsciously quoted High School musical...” after hearing that Virgil started laughing, his worries temporarily forgotten. 

“I have a panic attack and the first thing your mind thinks to do is to quote an old Disney Channel movie?”

“Well it worked didn’t it?” Virgil had to think about that for a while... yes, it had actually worked. 

“Yeah... thank you...” Virgil sighed. “I’m sorry I think... I... a lot happened since yesterday evening and... it... I mean I...”

“You got overwhelmed?” 

“Yeah...” it was quiet for a while. Both men not knowing what to say after what had happened. The silence wasn’t awkward though. It was calming and comforting 

“So I’m guessing we’re not pranking Mari then?” Roman asked after a while. 

Virgil quickly shook his head. 

“Oh no we’re pranking Mari, we’re definitely pranking Mari!”


	44. The duck game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roman, Virgil and Mari meet up at the duck statue.

Roman texted Mari through the group chat. Virgil anxiously sitting next to him. They had talked their plan through multiple times and had agreed that nothing that was said when Mari was there, was to be taken seriously, as they both loved each other and did not accidentally want to insult the other. 

Roman: greetings citizens! I had to collect some things from my dorm room, so I’m in town. Wanna hang out? 

Virgil rolled his eyes at Roman’s message and waited a few minutes before responding.

Anx (virge): citizens... really? Could you live up to your name even more?

Virgil was reading over Roman’s shoulder and saw he had changed his contact name from ‘Anx’ to ‘Anx (virge)’. He smiled softly reading what Roman was writing. 

Roman: What can I say? I am a Prince!

“Yeah like Hans” Virgil chuckled, and full on started laughing when Roman started making those cute offended noises, that he secretly loved to hear. 

“How dare you! Wait... was that?”

“I never said I couldn’t make Frozen references!” Virgil shrugged. 

A beep from Roman’s phone and a buzz from Virgil’s alerted them that Mari had written something in the group chat.

Mari: Boys, behave! 

Mari: yeah sure, would love to hang. Where?

Roman: park, 2 PM? 

Mari: sure seems good!

Roman: you coming too Anx?

If Virgil wasn’t there to correct him he had probably called him Virge in the group chat, which would have ruined their plan, before they had even started executing it. 

Anx (virge): yeah, sure, whatever. 

Roman: GREAT! See you at the duck statue! 

Mari: see ya!

Mari: oh speaking about princes! Have you found Cinderella yet Ro? 

Roman: nope, no luck with Cinderella :(

Roman looked at Virgil sitting next to him. Oh if only Mari would know what had happened since yesterday evening and if only she could see them now, sitting against each other and Virgil actually sitting on his couch... she would probably freak out! 

Anx (virge): ugh is this all you guys are gonna talk about?

Anx (virge): and if so... is it to late for me to duck out?

Mari: did you just make a duck pun? O.o

Mari: Patton is starting to rub of on you

Anx (virge): maybe I did... and Patton probably would’ve added ‘quack’ in there as well. 

Mari: true... see you guys at 2!

Anx (virge): yup see ya at 14:00. 

Mari: do you have to be European?

Anx (virge): do you have to have the last word?

Mari: yes.

Roman left Virgil’s apartment at 1:45 so he would be at the park a little early. He started his car, because he was supposedly coming from college, which meant he couldn’t walk there. Virgil left ten minutes later having to walk for 15 minutes on his flip flops, because he had given Roman back his shoe. He was going to be late as always, to make everything seem as normal as possible. 

When Virgil got there, Roman an Mari were already standing at the duck statue, talking. 

The duck statue had been a joke from some university students, about 20 years ago. The students had this game in which they tried to pass a life size wooden duck to other students without them noticing it, tagging them in the proces. The game had lasted 3 weeks before the duck disappeared. Then it started to show up on random places at campus and the small town nearby. 

By then everyone knew about the duck tag game, but a lot of adults hated it, so it turned into a game of protect the duck. Every time the duck was spotted somewhere by a student he had to protect it for an hour, before he could take it with him and place it somewhere else the next day, for another student to find it. 

Eventually the mayor, Edward Mitchell, had confiscated the duck from a student, who failed to protect it. But his son had been one of the initiators of the duck game and managed to get the duck back. 

Out of spite the students had voted for the new statue in the park to be the duck, as it was an important part of the town’s history and since so many students had voted for it and a lot of other people hadn’t cared to vote. The town had to place a statue of the wooden duck in the park. 

Let’s just say mister Mitchell wasn’t really happy with his son’s behavior at that moment, but then again, he was almost never happy with his son’s behavior. 

Virgil laughed at Mari throwing her arms in the air seemingly out of desperation. Which got his friends’ attention. Mari scrunched up her face. 

“What’s with the beanie, Anx the angsty?” She giggled knowing exactly why he was wearing the beanie. 

“Roots” he shrugged. 

The conversation went on from that. Both Virgil and Roman waiting for the moment Mari would bring up the mystery man from the party.


	45. A self deprecating fuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They fight?

“You think Cinderella might not live in Orlando?” Mari asked after they had been walking and relaxing in the park for a few hours already. “Maybe we should spread our search to other places nearby? We should totally make a road trip to find true love!” Her question managed to get her a glare from Virgil. 

“What places were you thinking of?” Roman asked, knowing Mari was using him, in a nice and fun way, until he would figure out Angelo was Virgil, or until Virgil told him, just to tease the shit out of Virgil.

“Ugh Roman, you know she just wants you to drive her places right” Virgil huffed. “Thereby don’t you think that if that guy... Virgil? Wanted his shoe back, he would have gotten it back by now?” Virgil sounded really annoyed when he said that, and Roman could only think about how Virgil was a surprisingly good actor. 

“Don’t you want Roman to find his true love?” Mari asked shocked. Thinking that Virgil had changed his mind about the whole thing. 

“You don’t find true love at a student party where half of the guests are so drunk they can’t even remember the reason for the party in the first place!” Virgil argued. “Wasn’t this party to celebrate you getting away from your mentally abusive ex! What if mystery man is just as abusive, maybe in a different way, but still mentally draining when you get to know him! Ever thought about that?!” This sentence worried Roman. Sure they had promised each other multiple times that nothing they said was to be taken seriously, but Roman couldn’t stop wondering if that was a real fear Virgil had, and if maybe that was the reason he pushed him away in the first place.

“I wasn’t drunk!” Was the only thing Roman could think of as a counter argument. “Nothing was clouding my judgement!”

“Yes, because you’re such a good judge of character!”

“Anx calm down!” Mari almost screamed. “You’re behaving ridiculously!” 

“No you are! You didn’t believe for one second that guy was actually interested in Roman, right?! He would have done something by now if he was.”

“He did do something! He came to the party!” Mari tried to convince Virgil that he did that for the same reasons she thought he had done it.

“Get over it Mari... It’s never gonna happen.” Virgil was about to walk away, knowing that Roman was going to take the argument even further. 

Mari was stunned, didn’t Virgil want a relationship with Roman? Had that not been his goal? Was Virgil not the person she had believed he was? She was about to run after him when Roman decided to speak up again. 

“Not with your attitude mister morose!” He shouted after Virgil.

“Get your head out of the clouds, Princey. It’s never gonna happen!” Roman immediately had a comeback ready for this, but didn’t know if he could actually say it. He didn’t want to throw Virgil into another panic attack, after all, he had already had one this morning. 

Virgil saw the doubt in his eyes and knew exactly what Roman was going to say. He was going to mention the crash, but didn’t for Virgil’s sake. Virgil couldn’t possibly love him more at that moment. Even in a heated fake argument, in which Roman could’ve easily slipped up, and Virgil would have forgiven him for that, Roman was still considered of him. 

It brought tears to his eyes, but the others didn’t know it was good tears. Roman almost broke character if Virgil wouldn’t have blinked his eyes 3 times in a fast tempo, a sign that Roman didn’t actually hurt him so much that he started crying. 

There was an unforeseen problem, though. As at that exact moment Logan and Patton walked by to hear the arguing friends and see a crying Virgil. 

Patton immediately went into overprotective dad mode, hugging Virgil and shushing him, while almost glaring at Roman and Mari, a look that was strange for the person who was always sweet and nonjudgmental. 

Virgil had really wanted a hug, which was very weird for him, but he had not wanted to hug Patton. He had wanted nothing more than to jump into Roman’s arms and not let go for a while. 

Logan was a bit more sensible than Patton in his approach. He called on Roman and Mari to explain what had happened only minutes earlier. While Virgil was burying his head further into Patton’s chest. Unbeknownst to the others that he did that to try to hide his embarrassment, not because he was actually upset with Roman and Mari. 

“Anx freaked out, when we were talking about finding that guy from Roman’s party.” Mari answered Logan. 

Roman wasn’t really sure what to do. Luckily before he could do anything, Virgil struggled his way out of Patton’s hug. 

“Yeah, that idiot with the guitar, who left his shoe like Cinderella.” He said while kicking his right flip flop towards Mari. 

“Now now, Angelo. It’s not nice to call someone an idiot. Especially if you’ve never even met him.” Patton tutted.

“Well... what if I have met him? What if I knew exactly who you were talking about this entire time.” He said staring at Mari. “And what if I don’t like the self deprecating fuck!” 

Logan started to catch on. Remembering how Remy had called his +1 for the party ‘like family’ and ‘as annoying as my brother’. He looked at the beanie on Virgil’s head that hid his hair and the one flip flop he was still wearing. Logan was about to call Virgil out on it, when he saw something, almost foreign, in Virgil’s eyes. Confidence. The person who just called himself a self deprecating fuck, looked more confident than ever. So Logan let the scene play on for a little longer.


	46. You truly are Cinderella now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Omg guys! It’s the end of Thrillers and Fairytales O.O

Mari looked at her best friend in disbelief. Had she really taken, him coming to the party, completely the wrong way? Had her teasing both Roman and Virgil for the last two weeks only upset Virgil and driven Roman and him further apart? 

Roman ducked to pick Virgil’s flip flop from the ground. If he had known this would happen, he would have brought a pillow to lay the shoe on, like in Cinderella. Now he was just standing awkwardly with a flip flop in his hands. Why did he pick it up again? He really didn’t think this through.

Neither had Virgil who was still standing on one leg, trying his hardest to not fall over while Roman was awkwardly holding his right shoe. 

Nobody really knew what to say, well except for Logan, but he kept his mouth shut, knowing this was something the students had to figure out on their own. He grabbed his husband’s shoulder and whispered something in his ear. 

Patton’s attempts to hug Virgil again ceased immediately. All his shock, glee and slight disappointment easily readable from his face and Virgil knew by now that it was game over, or he would have to calm Patton down later, because he called himself a self deprecating fuck, which not only contained a swear word, but also said that Virgil was thinking badly about himself. 

So Virgil sighed and shared a look with Roman. Then he went on to look Mari in the eyes. She was still so unsure about what to make of the situation and he knew what they did was wrong, so Virgil apologized. 

“I’m sorry for freaking out on you Mari.” He said casting his eyes downwards, but not losing that bit of confidence Logan saw in them before. 

“Yeah you should be!” She bounced back, before Virgil could even finish his apology. “But you shouldn’t apologize to me, you should apologize to Roman! For EVERYTHING.” 

The way Mari said everything made it clear to Virgil that she probably meant that he had to apologize for leading him on, when he had no romantic feelings for him, and that after a messy break up too. The thing was... Mari was the one leading him on, by keeping him away from Virgil in the first place and, without her knowledge, Roman and Virgil were actually together now. This made Virgil unsure what he should be apologizing for, until he got it. 

“Princey, I’m sorry for being a sarcastic shit all the time, because of my anxiety. I’m sorry I lied to you when I used a grounding exercise on you while you were freaking out before your performance. I’m sorry for not telling you I was actually at the theater to see that same performance. I’m sorry for not trusting my instincts when I thought Ted was being manipulative. I’m sorry that I- woah” Virgil lost his balance and would have fallen over if Roman hadn’t rushed to his side to catch him. 

“I’m sor-“ Virgil started again, but Roman stopped him. 

“No need to apologize.” he smiled softly at Virgil. 

“Okay, I just... I wanted to ask you...” Damn Roman that look he was giving Virgil, really didn’t help Virgil to get his words out. “Canyoupleasegivememyshoeback!” 

“Oh... never mind I think I liked you apologizing more.” 

“Give. me. my. shoe. back.” Virgil’s voice was low and demanding, but Roman knew it was just play, so he ran away waving Virgil’s flip flop in the air, with a on one leg hopping Virgil behind him. 

“Come and get it.” Roman stuck out his tongue, the world around them completely forgotten. But unfortunately for him Virgil hadn’t forgotten about his surroundings as he nonchalantly hopped towards Roman’s backpack. Right now he didn’t really care about mismatching shoes too much.

Roman had stopped and turned around to see Virgil with his bag and quickly sprinted back.

“Don’t you dare!” He yelled as Mari was looking confused at the two, who were fighting only a few minutes ago, and now were falling back into their usual playful banter. 

“What are you gonna do to stop me?” Virgil said as he started to open the zipper. 

“This.” Roman answered as he slid Virgil’s flip flop on his lover’s foot. “You truly are Cinderella now” he whispered into Virgil’s ear, which made him giggle. 

“Bitches I’m here! What did I miss?” Everyone turned around to the random voice coming from behind Logan and Patton. Remy quickly turned the two men around again leaning on both of their shoulders. “Quite a lot I would say.” He said chuckling.

The sight made Logan give a small smile and made Patton squeal in excitement. Mari turned around as well, curious as to what Remy meant with that, only to see Virgil and Roman standing close to each other and kissing each other. 

“Finally!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to keep who is saying “Finally” open for you guys to fill in. Is it Mari? Is it Remy, Patton or Logan? Or maybe it’s everyone? That’s for you to decide!


	47. Thank you :)

Thank you so much for reading and liking this story! 

I loved reading your comments and seeing how invested you guys got with the story and the characters.

I love you all! You guys are amazing <3 

This story was a journey and definitely didn’t end up the way I expected it to, but it turned out so much better than my original plan. 

Also OMG I actually managed to write 46 chapters... Like how???

Don’t worry this won’t be the last time you’ll read about this characters in my writing. I’m already planning on writing a prequel about Logan and Patton at college and maybe some oneshots or a sequal about what happens next! 

I’m also writing another Sanders Sides fic, which is very sad and dark, but will have a happy ending! If you’re interested in that then click on the link below:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15744510/chapters/36610500

Again, thank you so much for reading this and I hope to see you guys again at one of my future fics!  
<3 <3 <3

-x- ScarletEyes aka Shirley


	48. Prequel is there!!

I started writing the prequel to Thrillers and Fairytales and called it...

Textbooks and Novels!  
Here’s a link. If you liked this story please check it out!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15913482/chapters/37095438

-x- ScarletEyes aka Shirley


	49. Get hyped! I’ve started writing the sequel!

You read it correctly!

I’ve started writing the sequel! 

You can find it here:  
https://archiveofourown.org/works/16967304   
or at the bottom of this “chapter” where it shows the series this work belongs to. 

Don’t worry I’ll also continue writing the prequel as well! 

<3 ScarletEyes


End file.
